


Under His Wing

by grayseeker



Series: Unbroken [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M, Reunions, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-08 01:13:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1921059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayseeker/pseuds/grayseeker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took Skyfire no time at all to realize that he wasn't cut out to be a Decepticon. But now, several months later, he's starting to wonder if he's any better suited for life as an Autobot. Perhaps that has something to do with the Decepticons' strange inability to hold him prisoner for very long, and with the elusive, delta-winged shadow that keeps tracking him from the edges of space.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: For those who don't recall, in the episode _Day of the Machines,_ Skyfire (along with Spike and Hound) is taken prisoner by the Decepticons. Starscream appears late in the episode for about a second, with no explanation given for why he's there. Shortly after, Skyfire and company have a suspiciously easy time escaping their predicament. I drew my own conclusions from these facts, and this story is the result.
> 
> Acknowledgments: Thanks to Wrenchwench for generous, thoughtful and inspiring beta support. And, if you love this pairing, check out her [tumblr](http://officialbumblebee.tumblr.com/) for much lovely Skyfire/Starscream art and other goodies. Thanks also to my brother TC (which does not stand for Thundercracker) for reading through and offering his encouragement, along with some very useful suggestions.

In which Skyfire contemplates the meaning of life and of lost love—and the Decepticons attack. Spoilers for the episodes _Day of the Machines_ and _The Ultimate Doom: Part 3_ in this chapter, and spoilers for the episode _Fire in the Sky_ throughout the story. 

* * *

  


Skyfire's cell was, like most things, too small for him. So were the manacles restraining his arms. The Decepticons who'd chained him had, to their credit, tried to make some adjustments, but the energon shackles still dug painfully into his wrist joints whenever he moved, and the chains were so short, compared to his height, that he was left with the option of either sitting on the floor with his arms pinned above his head, or standing in a half-crouch with his arms behind him. He'd opted for the former. It kept his weight off his injured leg, although it didn't do much for his wounded shoulder.  


This was the second time in less than a month that he'd been an involuntary guest of the Decepticons. He wondered if that might be some kind of record, but he doubted it. Over the course of millions of years of conflict, there must have been at least a few other Autobots as painfully inept as he was. He supposed the reason why he'd never heard of them was that they probably hadn't lived for very long. In his darker moments, he wondered how long _he_  was going to last. Or, how long he wanted to.  


His world, the world he'd known before the ice, was now long vanished. That was a world he'd understood. A world where he'd had a role and a purpose. A sense of meaning and belonging. A world where he'd been able to love, and be loved. That was all gone now, swept away by the war.  


He understood the war, at least in an academic sense. He'd spoken to his fellow Autobots—those who didn't mind talking to him—to get a sense of their experiences. And he'd studied the historical files, such as there were, in Teletraan One's database. There were a lot of gaps in the record, especially with the limited access he'd been granted, but he'd been able to piece together a general understanding of the conflict.  


What he couldn't understand was the hate. He would have thought himself incapable of it once, and yet he'd found it creeping into him like a slow corrosion. He'd tried, for a time, to act like the other Autobots, to fling blasts and insults at the "enemy" as they did. Until, one day, he'd overheard several of his friends talking about Starscream in that way. They'd been mocking his voice and speculating about the nature of his relationship with Megatron, while painting scenarios of various ugly deaths they felt he deserved.  


Someone had elbowed Skyfire's arm and asked him what _he_ thought, and it had been like looking in a mirror. A mirror of his future, of what he was becoming. He'd had no answer to give. He'd walked away, not trusting himself, and he knew deep down that they didn't trust him, either. That was the reason why his role with the Autobots consisted of ferrying his new friends from point A to point B, when he could have been assisting Ratchet and Wheeljack with their scientific projects. And so, here he was. Caught between a hate that he didn't want to own, and a love who was no longer his.  


Starscream had entered his cell briefly, while Thundercracker and two younger Seekers, whose names Skyfire didn't know, were struggling with the shackles. Skyfire supposed he could have attempted to put up a fight at that point, but he hadn't wanted to. The truth was that he'd just wanted to look at Starscream, who had been carefully avoiding his gaze. Skyfire didn't mind. If this turned out to be his last glimpse, he wanted to make the most of it.  


Starscream had looked so beautiful. He always did, though to Skyfire, he'd seemed particularly so in that moment. Even with his leg half crushed where the steel girders had fallen on him, even with one of his wings bent and energon seeping from dozens of little scorch-marks and lacerations, he'd looked every inch the warrior. Every inch the illustrious, and infamous, Decepticon Air Commander.  


"This one is _my_ prisoner," Starscream had announced, with utter authority. "Anyone who lays a digit on him will answer to me personally. Is that understood?"  


The other three had mumbled their assent. Starscream had nodded, turned on his heel, and strode from the room without so much as a glance in Skyfire's direction. He'd walked with just the faintest trace of a limp, even though Skyfire had clearly seen the torn wires and mangled circuitry sparking angrily through the long crush-wound in his thigh armor. He must have been in enormous pain, but he didn't show it.  


Perhaps it was contradictory for Skyfire to feel proud of him, but he did. Starscream was a survivor. Skyfire had always known that, but Starscream had done far more than just survive. He'd risen through the ranks to become Megatron's second in command, which could have been no small accomplishment. He'd adapted, had become what this world had demanded of him, and Skyfire couldn't regret it. Even if it made them enemies, even if it made them strangers. Even if it meant that Starscream would end up killing him. It was a bittersweet gift that he got to see this, and if it was the one thing the ice hadn't taken from him, he was grateful.  


His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a heavy tread from the corridor outside. His guard was, from the sound of things, a lot bigger than Rumble and Ravage, the diminutive pair who'd been assigned to him the last time he'd been taken prisoner. It was only in retrospect, after he and his companions had escaped, that he'd come to consider it odd that someone his size would be guarded by two mecha who were small enough for him to lift one in each hand. Or that the room they'd been locked inside had also happened to contain a working electromagnet.  


Granted, he didn't know much about wars and how they were fought, but he couldn't help thinking that the Decepticons had done an especially shoddy job of trying to restrain him. It was almost as if he and his friends were _supposed_ to escape. But that was such a strange idea, so entirely illogical, that in the end he'd dismissed it as simply his imagination. His current situation seemed to bear that out. His restraints, though small, were more than sturdy enough to hold him in place. The cell walls were of a thick Cybertronian alloy, not the brittle Earth-made steel that he'd found so easy to punch through last time. And, of course, there were no electromagnets, or anything else that could be used as a weapon.  


Not that he was planning an escape. He was content to remain where he was, and simply wait. Maybe he'd see Starscream once again before they killed him. Maybe even speak with him. It seemed too much to hope for, but he hoped anyway. The fates owed him that much.  


* * *

Skyfire's day had begun with waiting. He'd sat parked on hot tarmac for much of the morning while Jazz and Sparkplug dealt with a seemingly endless variety of customs forms. Eventually Jazz had asked him to open his hold, and several of the braver port staff had driven up his ramp on forklifts, carrying crates filled with the supplies that Wheeljack needed for his ongoing attempts to fortify the Autobot base's decrepit security system.  


Skyfire wondered how the humans really felt about this transaction. Most of them seemed friendly enough, but he thought the exchange of materials seemed a little too much like a ransom that the Earthlings were paying to their bigger, more powerful "guests" in exchange for their own safety. Safety which the Autobots, of course, could never guarantee. Not that Skyfire knew much about such things. It just seemed to him that the humans might see it that way, even if the Autobots preferred not to.  


Once his hold was packed, Skyfire was asked to fly back to Autobot Headquarters where Wheeljack was impatiently anticipating the arrival of his cargo. The day was cloudless, and Skyfire couldn't help scanning the blue arch of sky for the delta-winged shadow that appeared sometimes, tracking his movements from the edges of space. He felt a pang whenever his silent escort appeared, and also whenever he didn't. Like today.  


Starscream's presence should have seemed menacing, considering that they were supposed to be enemies. Certainly, it was something that Skyfire should have been reporting to his allies. Yet he never said anything to anyone. The sight of that ghostly shape was comforting in a way he couldn't have explained, even to himself. It made this new world seem less foreign, less alien, and—ironically—less hostile. Skyfire ached for a time, which seemed like just yesterday, when there would be nothing holding him back from soaring up to join him.  


Today, however, the sky was empty. Not only was there no trace of Starscream, but there had been no hint of Decepticon activity for the past two weeks. Skyfire had been with the Autobots long enough to know that this was a bad sign. Everyone was a little on edge, a little snappy. Even Jazz's normally talkative, sunny disposition seemed muted.  


Sparkplug, who'd come along to provide a human face for their meeting with the port authorities, remarked that everyone seemed to be waiting for the other shoe to drop. He then had to explain, for Skyfire's benefit, what shoes were. Once Skyfire wrapped his mind around the notion that humans apparently removed the exo-structure of their pedes at night, he found the idiom quite fitting. They were about halfway back to the Autobot base when the call came.  


"Optimus's team is in trouble," Prowl said, without preamble, over Skyfire's comlink.  


"Trouble?" Jazz echoed. "What kind of trouble, Prowl?"  


Skyfire noticed the extra warmth in his voice when he said Prowl's name. It was a surprising match: the exuberant Jazz and the aloof, seemingly chilly Autobot second. Then again, no one had thought he and Starscream made any sense either, and that was long before the war.  


"The Decepticon variety," Prowl answered, his tone grim. "Optimus needs reinforcements on the double. How soon can you get here?"  


It took Skyfire a moment to realize that the question was being directed at him. "Oh. We're about ten minutes out," he supplied.  


"And your hold is full, correct?"  


"Yes."  


"Okay, I'll have a team standing by to unload you the moment you land."  


Skyfire punched his thrusters and managed to shave a couple of minutes from his estimate. He'd always been fast in the air. As promised, a team of Autobots were waiting for him when he landed. Wheeljack attempted to supervise the unloading operation, exclaiming with dismay whenever one of his crates got jostled in the rush to clear some space in Skyfire's hold. Then everyone who could be spared from the base—minus Sparkplug, because Prowl deemed the situation to be too dangerous for humans—piled aboard.  


Skyfire was about to take off again when he heard the wail of a familiar siren. A dust cloud appeared, roaring toward them along the dirt road that led from the nearest human settlement. Out of that dust cloud came Inferno, the Autobot fire chief. The fire truck's tires spat gravel as he tore around the last corner, his hind wheels fishtailing as they fought for purchase in the dusty soil. His siren continued to howl even as he transformed into his mech form and rushed toward Skyfire, his arms flailing above his head.  


"Wait!" he shouted, at the top of his voice. "I'm coming with you!"  


Skyfire, who had just raised his ramp, began to lower it again.  


"No," Prowl said, "we need at least a skeleton crew guarding the base. Skyfire, let's go."  


Skyfire began to raise his ramp again, but Inferno made a flying leap and grabbed onto it with both hands. "No _way!"_   He was dangling from the edge of the ramp, pedes swinging off the ground as he held on with grim determination. "Red's in trouble, there's no way you're leaving without me!"  


"Inferno, this isn't a good—"  


"Prowl, let him come," Jazz interjected. "How would you feel if it was me?"  


Skyfire stilled his ramp and waited while Prowl thought it over. Finally, with a snort of annoyance, the Autobot second said, "Fine—get in. We don't have time to argue about this."  


Inferno didn't wait for Skyfire to lower his ramp the whole way. He swung a leg up over the edge of it and hauled himself inside the moment the gap was large enough for his shoulders to fit. He then slid down the ramp and landed in Skyfire's hold with a resounding crash. "Thank you," he said.  


Prowl dismissed this with a wave. "Let's go."  


As they flew southeast, Prowl divided the Autobots into two teams and offered a terse briefing. Optimus Prime and a small group that included Red Alert, the Autobot security chief and Inferno's partner, had been doing a security inspection of the military facility that housed Project Obsidian, a top-secret experimental aircraft. The Obsidian craft's propulsion system had been reverse-engineered from some strange wreckage that humans had discovered in the New Mexico desert, and which was generally thought to be off-world tech. What the Decepticons might want with it was unclear, but want it they did. They'd mounted a surprise attack while the Autobot team was inside the base, and were now holding a group of the base's human personnel hostage in one of the lower levels.  


"That's pretty bold," Jazz observed. "You'd think the Deceps would wait 'til our team was out of the picture."  


"You'd think," Prowl agreed. He put a hand on Jazz's arm and drew him aside. "Have you noticed," he said in a lower voice, "how the Decepticons always seem to be two steps ahead of us lately?"  


"Hmm yeah, now that you mention it," Jazz replied. "They seem to break our codes and passwords without even trying. How d'you suppose they're doing that?"  


"I have some ideas." Prowl said. His voice had dropped further still, and Skyfire tried not to eavesdrop on their conversation, though it was difficult not to, considering that they were having it inside his hold. Prowl shot a glance at Inferno as he added, "I'd rather not say until I'm sure."  


Jazz followed the direction of Prowl's gaze, his expression quizzical. Inferno hadn't noticed. His full attention was focused on Skyfire's holo-display, anxiously tracking their progress toward their destination.  


Prowl cleared his throat. "Our top priority," he said, resuming his normal voice, "is to help Optimus and the others, and to get the human personnel to safety."  


"I can help with that," Skyfire put in, guessing this might be his cue. "I can fly them out of harm's way."  


"No, we'll need you for air support," Prowl said.  


"Air support?" Skyfire wanted to ask Prowl what he meant, but his internal nav system pinged before he got the chance. "We're here," he announced. "But are you sure these coordinates are right?"  


They were circling above empty desert. There were no roads, power lines, or artificial structures of any kind. The landscape's most noticeable feature was a flat-topped table mountain, the kind that humans called mesas.  


"This is it," Prowl confirmed. "Just land on top of the mesa."  


As soon as he set down, Skyfire realized that the mountaintop was artificial. It was made from a rough cement material that had been painted to blend with the colors of the natural rock, and he felt a hollow vibration beneath his landing gear as his weight settled on it. A hidden set of doors, set horizontally in this cement floor, slid open, and an elevator platform rose from inside the base. Ironhide was standing on it, looking very much the worse for wear. Several deep, ugly laser burns scored the front of veteran warrior's scarlet chassis, but he grinned broadly as he limped over to Skyfire.  


"Well, aren't y'all a sight for sore optics," he said, raising his gun in a greeting salute as Skyfire opened his hold. "Sure took you guys long enough to get here." He and Prowl conferred for a moment, then Prowl motioned to Jazz.  


"You and your team go with Ironhide," Prowl said. "You'll be coordinating the rescue of the humans, but be sure to wait for our signal."  


"See you on the flip-side," Jazz said cheerfully. He beckoned to his team.  


Inferno stepped forward to join them, but Prowl stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Not so fast, hothead," he said. "You're with my team."  


Once the elevator platform descended from view and the doors slid closed, the mountaintop returned to its formerly pristine, natural appearance. No one would ever guess that there was an entire military facility hidden just inside. Skyfire could only marvel at the humans' cleverness for being able to build such a thing. For all their apparently harmless nature, they seemed to be every bit as versed in the art of war as the Decepticons.  


"Fly us down to the northwest side of the mesa," Prowl instructed. "There's a second entrance there."  


Viewed from above, the second entrance looked exactly like a natural fissure in the mountainside. Once Skyfire settled, though, he could see heavy blast doors concealed within the fissure. These, too, were painted in desert colors, and visible to Skyfire more by their heat signature than anything else. The doors snapped open and a small group of military-attired humans emerged with weapons drawn, eyeing Prowl and his team nervously as the Autobots hurried toward them. Skyfire supposed it was understandable that the soldiers would feel apprehensive, considering they'd just been attacked by Decepticons.  


Prowl exchanged greetings with the soldier who seemed to be in charge of the group, and then everyone, humans and Autobots alike, started toward the open doorway. That was Skyfire realized that they were all just leaving.  


"Prowl!" he called, as he transformed and waved to get his attention.  


The Autobot second gave him a startled look, as if he'd momentarily forgotten that Skyfire was, in fact, more than just a carrier shuttle. "What is it?" he asked.  


"I don't understand what you mean by air support," Skyfire admitted. "What is it, exactly, that you need me to do?"  


"Oh," Prowl said, with a hint of apology. "It means you fly above the base and watch for Decepticons."  


"And report back if I see any?"  


"No, if you see Decepticons you _blast_ them." Prowl was adjusting his weapon as he spoke. The gun made a soft "click," and that sound, tiny as it was, triggered an icy sensation in Skyfire's spark.  


"I would… blast them… to keep them from stealing the experimental aircraft," Skyfire stated carefully. "Is that correct?"  


"Of course. Whatever they want with it, we know it can't be good." Prowl glanced over his shoulder at his waiting team, then turned back to Skyfire with optics narrowed. "Is that going to be a problem?"  


Skyfire heard concern in his tone, but there was something else, too. Doubt, and gathering suspicion. Skyfire hesitated. He had a sudden, vivid recollection of the Decepticons putting him on guard duty after he first woke from his long sleep. They'd handed him a gun, which he'd barely known how to use, and had ordered him to blast any Autobots he might see. He hadn't wanted to do that, either. Finally, he squared his shoulders and just said what he'd said all those months ago. To Starscream. "I… shall try my best."  


Prowl favored him with a cool, thoughtful look. He seemed as if he was about to say something else, but then gave a quick shake of his head. "Good luck."  


Skyfire watched as Prowl and the others disappeared into the base. Since joining the Autobots, he'd been in a number situations that had required him to fire at Decepticons. He'd always justified it by telling himself that he was doing it to protect his friends, but this test aircraft, as strategically important as it might potentially be, was just a machine. A sparkless hull, not a sentient being. Could he do this?  


He launched skyward, transformed, and took up a holding pattern above the mesa. That's what humans called this, this flying in circles waiting for something to happen. The expression seemed apt. Skyfire felt he'd been in a holding pattern since he first woke from his hibernation. He was always holding back, holding himself in check—and holding on.  


That had started with his first glimmer of returning consciousness. There'd been a sharp, unmistakable jab through the frayed remnants of the spark-bond he shared with Starscream. Skyfire had instantly known it for what it was: a warning. And he'd known what it meant, too, in that old way that he'd always known what Starscream's little pokes and nudges meant. Starscream had wanted him to play it cool, to act as if they were little more than strangers.  


And Skyfire had. He'd held back from reaching for Starscream, or touching him, or even smiling, when all he'd wanted to do was sweep him into his arms and never let go. And now he might be expected to shoot him.  


He'd re-buried himself in the ice because he couldn't bear the thought of hurting Starscream. He had believed that he couldn't bear the thought of hurting anyone. But then, a few months ago, he'd shot a Seeker on Cybertron. It was a non-lethal shot, deliberately so, and he'd done it to protect his friends. But it had been so easy, and he remembered the rush of triumph that he'd felt. He'd felt _good_ about it. How long before he could do that to anyone—even Starscream—and feel good about it? How long before the war ate him alive?  


He was afraid to find out. But if it came to that, to hurting Starscream—who was, in spite of everything, still the other half of his soul—he suspected that he would rather just die. It would be better than letting himself become the person this world was trying to shape him into. Someone his old self wouldn't recognize.  


But maybe it wouldn't come to that. Maybe Starscream wasn't here. Skyfire couldn't sense his presence through their bond, but then, he hadn't really been able to since that single, warning burst as he was coming out of hibernation. But surely it was possible that Starscream was elsewhere, that they wouldn't be forced to fight one another—at least not today.  


But then, Skyfire heard him.  


  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skyfire makes a tough decision, unearths an astrobiologist, and totally ruins Thundercracker's day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers this time, but maybe just a hint of Warp/Thunder. Many thanks again to wrenchwench for tireless beta assistance!

Starscream's voice cut clear across the background static coming through Skyfire's commlink from one of the Autobot teams inside the base. His voice was distorted, perhaps by the intervening layers of earth and rock, but it was certainly Starscream. No one else sounded quite like him.

"Auto-fools!" Skyfire heard him say. "Did you really think it would be that easy to escape with your precious human pets?"

"Just let 'em go!" That was Jazz, which meant they must be in the lower levels of the base where the Decepticons were holding the humans hostage.

"Maybe it's time you picked on someone your own size!" Skyfire heard Ironhide put in. His words were followed by an eruption of laserfire that seemed to go on for an interminable length of time. Skyfire listened tensely, hoping for more voices.

Then Starscream laughed. Not the laugh that Skyfire remembered; it was a harsh cackle, devoid of any actual humor. "It's no use—we know what your puny minds are thinking before you do! You must be wondering how we're doing this, aren't you? How we're pulling your passcodes out of thin air, and—"

"Silence, Starscream!" That was Megatron. Also unmistakable.

Skyfire heard Cliffjumper yell something he couldn't make out, and then there was an unintelligible exchange between Optimus Prime and Megatron. They were arguing, but that was all he could tell through the din of shouts and laserfire. Then there was a crashing, rending sound, followed by an awful silence. Skyfire listened, desperately straining his audials for any sign of life, while Starscream's words played through his mind in an endless loop: _We know what your puny minds are thinking before you do._

That was almost exactly what Prowl had said to Jazz during the flight. It couldn't be a coincidence. Nor could the fact that the Decepticons had attacked while Optimus and his team were inside the base. The Decepticons had been tracking them—somehow.

_What if it's me?_ Skyfire thought, horrified. Could his spark-bond with Starscream be acting as a beacon? Would Starscream use it that way? He might. Starscream had never been one to hold back from pressing any advantage that he might find. But surely Skyfire would have noticed him doing it, and there'd been nothing; their bond had been silent ever since that single, warning burst Starscream had sent to him as he was waking. In any case, Skyfire hadn't known about the existence of this base before the attack, so it couldn't have been him. At least, he hoped not.

But he was going to have to tell someone. He would have to explain the true nature of his relationship with Starscream. He could not, in good conscience, keep holding back that information from his allies. But then what? What would the Autobots do with their knowledge? Would they ask him to use it against the Decepticons? Against Starscream? He couldn't. And once he refused, there'd really be no place for him. He couldn't be a Decepticon, and he couldn't successfully be an Autobot, either. And those were his only options.

A sudden, horrific reverberation shattered his troubled thoughts. The mountain below him trembled, and a spiderwork of fissures raced across the top of the mesa. Then the flat cement roof buckled inward. Skyfire banked hard, air screaming across his wings, and dove toward the mesa. Only later would it occur to him that this was in violation of a direct order. Right now, all he cared about was finding whoever might be trapped inside the base.

Large chunks of the cement roof were still in place, but Skyfire didn't dare land on them for fear that his weight would upset their delicate balance. He flew down to the side entrance, transforming just as he touched down to keep his momentum. The blast doors were miraculously undamaged—a condition that didn't last long, because Skyfire toppled them from their housings with a single, swift kick. The corridor inside was choked with dust and smoke. The only lighting came from the bases's emergency lighting system, and the ceiling, though high by human standards, was still low enough that Skyfire found he had to fold his wings down and run forward at a crouch.

"Jazz!" he shouted into his commlink. "Prowl! Someone, answer me!"

He got nothing but static. His natural claustrophobia, a characteristic shared, to some degree, by all fliers, was fighting for possession of his spark. He forced it down, telling himself there wasn't time. His friends, everyone he cared about, were trapped in here, and he might be the only one who could help any of them.

"Optimus!" he tried again. "Ironhide, Cliffjumper! Is anyone alive in here?"

A blare of static came across the channel. Then a voice—a human voice—said, "Hello? Hello?"

"Thank Primus," Skyfire called back, relief swamping him. "Where are you? Are there others with you?"

"I'm with Red… um. Red Alert. I'm afraid we're trapped beneath some rubble."

"Red—is he all right?"

"Unconscious, I believe." The voice, which sounded male, had the thin, reedy quality that Skyfire had learned to associate with humans who were elderly. "I didn't quite make it onto the underground train when the other base personnel were being evacuated," the man explained. "Red Alert was attempting to drive me to safety when the roof caved in."

"All right," Skyfire said, "this is what you need to do." He explained how to activate Red Alert's distress locator and followed the signal down a series of corridors, each leading deeper into the mesa, until he found his way blocked by a towering pile of rubble. As he began pulling away chunks of debris, the front end of Red Alert's vehicle mode quickly came into view. Red Alert, whose frame was sporting some nasty dents, was indeed unconscious, though the activity in his field confirmed that he as very much alive.

His passenger side door popped open as Skyfire pulled him clear of the rubble, and a white-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard and bushy gray eyebrows climbed unsteadily from the front seat. Skyfire's memory banks wasted no time in classifying him as _human, male, caucasian,_ and estimating his age as mid-sixties. He wore a crisp white lab coat over a green shirt, a brown vest, and an ascot tie with a motif of owls embroidered on it. In his arms he was carrying a large cardboard box filled with floppy disks.

"Let me get those for you," Skyfire said, and lifted the box from the man's grasp. He set it carefully aside, then held out a hand to steady him. The man caught hold of his index finger, and smiled.

"Thank you," he said. "I'm Dr. Evans, head of astrobiology. As it seems you've just saved my life, please call me Bart."

"I'm Skyfire," Skyfire replied. "You're a scientist?"

Dr. Evans snorted. "Not according to the majority of my colleagues. But—yes. And it's very nice to meet you, Skyfire."

"It's nice to meet you too," Skyfire said, liking the man. If nothing else, it was refreshing to meet a human who didn't cringe in terror or instantly reach for a weapon on sight of him. "I'm a scientist too. I used to be an interplanetary explorer, back on Cybertron."

"An explorer!" The man's lined face broke into a brilliant smile. "It must be kismet that we've met. I do hope we'll get a chance to talk. I'm sure there will be a great deal for us to—"

Red Alert groaned and his armor flexed, straining for a moment. Then he transformed explosively and stood teetering on the tips of his pedes, arms flailing. Skyfire caught him just as he lost his balance, and eased him down to the floor so he wouldn't fall on his face.

"Red! Are you okay?"

"Arrgh!" Red Alert shook his head, seemingly more in an effort to clear it than in response to Skyfire's question. "Just—get out of my head!" He put a hand to his temple as if it pained him, and Skyfire noticed that the sensory horns at the sides of his helm were sparking ominously.

"Sorry," Skyfire said, pulling his hands away.

Red Alert glanced up at him with a look of startlement, as if noticing him for the first time. "S…Skyfire?" He started to get up.

Skyfire caught his shoulder and gently pushed him back down. "Don't try to move," he advised. "Can you tell me where the others are?"

"Others," Red Alert echoed. His gaze lost focus and he clutched again at the side of his helm, dentae gritted. "Others… gah! In my head…"

"Is he going to be all right?" Dr. Evans asked, frowning.

"I don't know," Skyfire admitted. Red Alert's legendary paranoia made him well suited for his role as security chief, but it also seemed to overwhelm him at times. Skyfire hoped that was all this was; a stress reaction, perhaps, from the confrontation with the Decepticons, along with the effects of having had several tons of debris fall on him. If Red Alert was having a serious break from reality, however, he wasn't sure there was much he could do.

"Oh dear," Dr. Evans said. "This is my fault. If I hadn't gone back for my files, I would have been on the train with the rest of the base personnel, and this never would have happened."

"Don't blame yourself," Skyfire said, though he kept his gaze on Red Alert, who had pulled himself into a tight little ball and was moaning softly to himself. "Dr. Evans," Skyfire began, but the man interrupted him.

"Please," he said. "It's Bart."

"Bart," Skyfire corrected himself. "Can you tell me if the others—"

"Skyfire?" a voice interrupted. It was Prowl, clambering over the debris pile from the far side. "What are you doing here?"

Skyfire was about to respond, but just then Inferno scrambled up behind Prowl. His gaze fell on Red Alert's huddled form. "Red!" He launched himself at Red Alert and caught him close, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "Hey buddy, you okay?"

"Prowl," Skyfire said, with a surge of relief. "Where's everyone else? Are they all right?"

"Everyone's fine, but why aren't you topside? The Decepticons are escaping with the aircraft!"

"The Obsidian craft?" Bart asked. "That is a pity, but I must say that Skyfire has been most helpful. I fear both Red Alert and I might have perished, if not for his assistance."

"That may be," Prowl said, "but I gave you a direct order, Skyfire."

"I'm sorry," Skyfire began to say. "I—"

"Hey, Skyfire!" It was Ratchet, who was climbing over the debris pile half-carrying an injured Mirage. "Great to see you, we've got a couple of minor casualties here." Behind him Ironhide was supporting Hound, and behind them were Cliffjumper and Gears, who was grumbling about the dust in his vents. Beyond them, bringing up the rear, Skyfire could just make out the looming outline of Optimus Prime.

"I'll fly everyone back to base," Skyfire offered.

"No, you might still be able to catch up with the 'Cons," Prowl said. "We'll take care of—"

"Warning," a toneless female voice interrupted. "Auto-destruct sequence engaged. Ten minutes and counting. All personnel report for designated evacuation protocols. Have a pleasant day."

"Oh my," Bart said, turning pale. "We need to get out of here. If the auto-destruct's been activated, there's no way of shutting it off."

"Gears," Prowl said, "Please drive Dr. Evans out of the base. And Skyfire— _go!"_

"And be sure to kick some Dee-cepticon tail while you're at it!" Ironhide put in cheerfully. "If I could fly, I'd do it myself!"

Skyfire didn't reply. He had nothing to say, and he wondered if he should even go. Prowl had said that everyone was safe. That was what mattered to him, not the fate of the experimental aircraft, and once he'd told the Autobots the truth about himself, he probably wouldn't be considered one of them anyway. If he harmed someone today, for the sake of a mere object, well... he'd just have to make sure that he didn't. That was all.

* * *

Skyfire had been hoping that the Decepticons' head start would make them hard to follow. Once he left the base, however, he spotted them rather easily. They appeared as a swarm of dark specks, moving unsteadily against the gauzy backdrop of cirrus clouds that now blocked the sun. They were flying awkwardly, as if their prize was slowing them down, and were clearly not in any hurry. Skyfire guessed that they weren't expecting a pursuit.

He dutifully transformed and shot straight up, punching through the filmy cloud layer into the upper atmosphere, a maneuver which brought him into an attack position more efficiently than chasing directly after them would have done. From his new vantage point, he could see Megatron, easily identifiable by his gleaming silver-gray chassis, flying at the head of the group. Soundwave flanked him on his left, and the Seekers were behind them, flying in formation around a large central object which Skyfire took to be the aircraft.

It was dull steel-gray and shaped like a flattened sphere, with a transparent cockpit bubble mounted on top. It somewhat reminded Skyfire of his old friend, Cosmos. Dirge, Thrust and Ramjet were carrying it suspended between them, using an arrangement of steel tether ropes. The black-and-purple form of Skywarp led the formation, while Thundercracker, easily recognizable in his blue-and-red, guarded the rear. There was, however, no sixth Seeker; no brilliant flash of silver and scarlet. No Starscream.

A thread of unease wound through Skyfire's spark. Starscream had been with the Decepticons inside the base, so where was he now? There was one way to find out. He dived, letting his engine thrust plus gravity take him down like a meteor. His frame heated, wingtips starting to glow. It burned in a pleasurable way, reminding him of the thrill of crashing groundward with Starscream. That memory seemed imprinted on every inch of his frame. The terror and the unbearable arousal of it, and the indescribable feeling of their thoughts blending together with the joining of their bodies.

He pushed those memories to the back of his mind as his momentum carried him into the midst of the cluster of Seekers. He transformed at the last possible moment and smashed, pedes first, onto the experimental aircraft. Its cockpit bubble atomized in a mist of glittering shards as the steel tether lines snapped, sending the aircraft plummeting.

If Starscream hadn't been missing, Skyfire would have gone after it and tried to scoop it into his hold. As things were, there wasn't time. He transformed and engaged his laser array. His lasers had served him well in the past for tasks such as collecting geological samples, and they served equally well now. A quick volley of blasts was all it took. The aircraft vaporized in roughly the same instant that the seven Decepticons appeared to register Skyfire's presence in their midst.

Skyfire transformed back into mech form, offered Megatron a mocking salute, and flipped backwards in an aerial somersault to avoid the inevitable round of blasts from the Decepticon leader's fusion cannon. Thundercracker, who was still at the rear of the formation, plowed right into him. Skyfire was ready for this. He smashed an elbow into a sensitive location on Thundercracker's underside, and the Decepticon gave a startled grunt of pain as he involuntarily transformed. Skyfire grasped his arms and pinned them to his sides so he couldn't use his rifles as they plunged earthward together.

"Where's Starscream?" Skyfire demanded. He had to shout to be heard above the air screeching across their audials.

Thundercracker stared at him blankly. "You... uh. _Skyfire?"_

"Great, you recognized me! Where the Pits is Starscream?"

"Star…uh…" Thundercracker's gaze turned fearfully toward the ground, which was fast rushing up to meet them. Skyfire engaged his anti-gravs to slow their fall just a little, wanting to ensure that his captive didn't end up smashed on the rocks below. The howl of jet engines dragged his attention upward, and he saw a black-and-purple shape streaking down toward them. Skywarp was coming his partner's rescue.

"Please," Skyfire implored. "I'm not going to hurt you, but that base is going to blow. Just tell me—did Starscream get out?"

Thundercracker's optics widened. He started shaking his head, and in that instant, Skywarp zapped out of existence and rematerialized several hundred feet below their position. The black Seeker transformed, raising his rifles. He was directly between them and the ground, and it was going to be an ugly impact for all three of them.

"Got pinned," Thundercracker croaked. "Megatron said… just leave him."

_"Leave him?"_ The concept was so alien that it took Skyfire several precious nano-kliks for to process it, which gave Skywarp time to fire his weapons. Twin laser blasts tore into Skyfire's shoulder. He lost his grip on Thundercracker, who fell and crashed against Skywarp. Skywarp caught him fiercely into his arms and shot Skyfire a venomous glare.

Skyfire raised his good arm in a wave of apology—it was the most he had time for—and transformed. The smoldering wounds burned horribly as air blasted across them, but he barely noticed the pain. Nor was he aware of breaking the sound barrier, though he did see Bart and and the small convoy of Autobots who were exiting the base wince and grab for their audials as he rocketed past above them. The majority of his processing power was consumed with trying to calculate that countdown. Ten minutes, the voice had said. How long had his pursuit of the Decepticons taken? Four minutes? Five?

"Skyfire!" Prowl's voice crackled over his commlink. "Were you able to—hey! Where are you going?"

"There's someone still in there!" Skyfire replied. It was all the explanation he had time to give. He didn't bother transforming when he reached the entrance. He just angled his body, folded his wings, and shot through the mangled hole where the blast doors had been. He was instantly surrounded by fire.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skyfire charges to the rescue, Starscream brings a scandalous secret to light, and a roof caves in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilerage (or ribald speculation, take it as you will) concerning the episode "Auto Berserk," with implied Starscream/Red Alert... though I wouldn't exactly call it a relationship. Thanks so much to Novaspark for awesome, last minute beta help!

Skyfire, still in shuttle mode, burst through the wall of flames. The heat was just a ticklish warmth against his hull, but he was blinded by the water pelting down on him from the base's sprinkler system. The emergency lights were faltering, greenish fluorescent panels stuttering off and on at random intervals. He flew using his proximity sensors for guidance, and engaged his laser array to blast through the rubble pile where he'd found Red Alert and Dr. Evans. The corridor narrowed after that, splitting off in several directions, and he was forced to land and transform.

"Auto-destruct sequence in progress," the toneless disembodied voice said over the base's intercom system. "Four minutes, and counting."

Skyfire turned in a slow circle. He could choose just one direction; it was all he had time for. If he picked the wrong one, he and Starscream were both going to die. He decided on the only option that seemed practical right now and turned inward, seeking out the brittle traces of their spark-bond. At first, it was almost intangible, like the dim background radiation that filled the gulfs between stars. Then there was a faint whisper of Starscream's familiar presence around the edges of his thoughts. Skyfire honed in on it, concentrating hard to bring it into focus.

 _Starscream,_ he sent. Not the word that was Starscream's name, so much as the tangle of emotions and images that were its meaning for him. Telepathic contact would be impossible over a bond this frail, but empathic communication was easier and more direct, since feelings required no translation. What he sent was velocity, heat and sound; fierce beauty; tenderness and spark-felt longing. The bond's slim filaments hummed to a semblance of life, and weak though it was from disuse, Skyfire could tell that it was unbroken and that it ran as deep as ever, right to the very truth of who he was. _Whose_ he was.

_My love; flame of my spark. Where are you?_

There was no response. Or rather, there was a kind of blankness that wasn't nothing. It was more the feeling of something being held back, muffled firmly into silence. It weighed on him like the leaden feeling before a storm, and then came a burst of what might as well have been lightning. Blinding fury, searing hurt, aching pride—all crackled along the bond with such force that they knocked Skyfire back a step. He reeled, grabbing at the wall for support as Starscream's unbridled rage tore into him.

"Skyfire! Come in, buddy!" It was Ironhide's voice, calling to him over his comm. "It's like a maze in here—where'd you go?"

Skyfire shook himself, breaking the emotional contact, and thumbed his comm. "Go back!" he shouted. "Get out of here!"

"Everyone's accounted for," Ironhide told him. "We counted twice—who do you think is still in here?"

"I can't talk about this right now!" Skyfire was already heading down one of the branching corridors, following the subtle pull of his spark as it reached across the bond, seeking its mate. 

"Look, if you think someone's trapped in here—"

"Someone _is!"_ Skyfire snapped, feeling suddenly—perhaps unreasonably—angered by the thought that Ironhide and the others would most likely not consider Starscream to be a "someone." Or, at least, not someone worth rescuing. 

"Aw, c'mon," Ironhide pleaded. "Stop tryin' to be a hero and let us help!"

"You can't help! Just _go."_

"No way, buddy. Send us your coordinates and we'll—"

Skyfire shut off the channel and broke into a run. He didn't have time to argue, but he knew he had to get to Starscream before Ironhide, and whoever he was bringing with him to "help," did. Even if the blasted rubble pile wasn't a dead giveaway, it would take them no time at all to track Skyfire via his Autobot transponder chip. Disabling the chip wouldn't have been hard, but Skyfire didn't have time for that either.

"Auto-destruct sequence in progress. Three minutes, thirty seconds, and counting."

He followed his spark to the end of the corridor and found himself at the brink of a deep, circular shaft. It dropped ten stories from where he stood, and connected, no doubt, to the lower levels where the Decepticons had held the base personnel hostage. The corridor had, it seemed, once led onto an observation deck with a railing, but most of it had been torn away in the explosion and no doubt lay among the heaps of rubble that littered the floor of the shaft.

The roof, which soared several hundred feet overhead, was a jigsaw of broken pieces that sagged precariously between a grid of steel support beams. It was, without a doubt, the underside of the mountaintop Skyfire had landed on earlier. A hole had been punched clear through its center and Skyfire caught a glimpse of open sky beyond. This was, he guessed, the route by which Decepticons had removed the experimental aircraft from the base.

"Starscream!" Skyfire shouted. His voice echoed from the walls of the shaft, but there was no response apart from a hard, defiant silence across the bond. Skyfire ex-vented a sigh, and stepped from the edge.

The air was clouded with dust and smoke, and his thrusters churned up still more as he settled to the floor of the shaft. Since he could see no more than a few pedes' distance in any direction, he simply followed his spark. His vague sense of Starscream's presence became more definite as he stumbled over piles of shattered concrete and twisted steel.

"Starscream!" he called again.

There was still no response—but then Skyfire saw him. He was pinned beneath a heavy steel girder, his form half obscured by slabs of concrete rubble. If the spark-bond hadn't been telling him where to look, Skyfire might not have seen him at all. Starscream, however, had most assuredly seen _him,_ because one of his shoulder rifles was pointing directly at Skyfire's chest. 

"Here to gloat?" Starscream hissed. 

His dentae were clenched in a grimace that communicated pain as much as it did anger. Skyfire's spark ached for him. The damage was mostly hidden under the debris, but it had to be severe. _This_ was how Megatron had left him? Even if the Decepticon leader hadn't been aware of the base's auto-destruct function, the idea of leaving Starscream—or anyone—like this, helpless to escape or defend himself, was unthinkable.

"Starscream!" Skyfire took a step toward him. "Thank Primus you're—"

Starscream fired. The beam zipped just above Skyfire's head and punched a neat hole into one of the support pillars beneath the sagging elevator platform. "That's the only warning you're going to get," he snarled.

Skyfire lifted his hands in a pacifying gesture. "The Autobots are coming. We don't have time to argue about—"

"Traitor! Get away from me!" Starscream fired again. Skyfire dodged, though he noticed that this shot went just as wide as the first one had. Starscream wasn't really trying to hit him, just deter him. Skyfire wasn't deterred. He knelt and began lifting away the heavy chunks of concrete that held Starscream pinned to the floor. 

"Auto-destruct sequence in progress. Two minutes and counting."

"I don't need help from the likes of you," Starscream grumbled. His rifle was still trained on Skyfire's head, but he was making no further attempts to fire.

"Who else is going to help?" Skyfire asked. "Megatron?" 

That question hit a sore spot. Skyfire could tell by the way Starscream bristled, his armor plates flaring in an instinctive attempt to seem bigger than he was. His field bristled too, spiking like an angry cat's fur. "I don't need Megatron _or_ you! I was doing fine on my own." He wriggled beneath the crushing load as if to emphasize his point.

"Yes, I can see that—hold still! You're making the damage worse. We have to get out of here."

 _"We?"_ Starscream gave him an incredulous look. "When you say _we,_ and that the _Autobots_ are coming, does that mean—" He broke off, his gaze shifting to something beyond Skyfire's shoulder. "Hsst!" 

It was a warning, and Skyfire took it as such. He glanced in the direction of Starscream's gaze, and saw Ironhide and Inferno standing atop the elevator platform. Both Autobots had their weapons trained on Starscream.

"So Cliffjumper was right this whole time," Inferno said, glaring down at them. "Skyfire's gone traitor!"

"Well let's not be hasty," Ironhide chided. "Skyfire? Wanna tell us what the Pits is goin' on here?"

"Does it even matter right now?" Skyfire asked. "We've got less than—"

"Auto-destruct sequence in progress," the voice interrupted helpfully. "One minute, forty-five seconds, and counting."

"Skyfire, I consider you a friend," Ironhide said, "and I don't pretend to get what's happenin' here, but I'm gonna need you to step away from _him._ There'll be plenty of time for explanations later, after I finish off the Decepti-rat."

"Unless," Inferno added, his optics narrowing, "you have a _problem_ with that."

"I do. I have a big problem with that." Skyfire shifted his body in front of Starscream's and flared his wings out, shielding him. One of the few advantages of his size was that he could do this easily. "If you want to shoot him, you'll have to shoot me first."

"Idiot!" Starscream whispered fiercely. "What the Pits are you doing?"

Ironhide tightened his finger on the trigger of his gun, then hesitated. He looked as if he was trying to decide what to do next, but just then there was a clatter of footsteps from somewhere on the far side of the elevator platform. 

"Inferno!" Red Alert's voice echoed from the walls of the shaft. "Where are ya? Wait up!"

"Aw, Red!" Inferno sounded exasperated. "What are you doing? You're supposed to be letting Ratchet check you over."

"And let you guys have all the fun?" Red Alert's head and shoulders popped into view as he scrambled up onto the platform. He looked considerably better than he had when Skyfire pulled him from the rubble. The dents were still there, of course, but his optics were clear, and he was smiling. Until his gaze fell on Starscream. _"You!"_

His gun flew up, and he didn't even hesitate to pull the trigger. Skyfire angled his wing to block the shot, and it ripped through his armor. He grunted under the renewed onslaught of pain, but didn't budge from his position. 

"Why it's Red Alert," Starscream cooed, "my former _partner!_ Back for more, so soon?"

"Shut up!" Red Alert moved to fire again, and Inferno made a grab for his gun. Red Alert dodged beyond his reach and aimed it square at Inferno's spark. "You?" Red Alert's sensory horns spat out twin bursts of energy. "Not you, 'Ferno," he pleaded, sounding lost and scared. "You _can't_ be with them!"

"Red?" Ironhide took a step toward him. "What's gotten into ya?"

Starscream laughed. "You should be asking _who's_ gotten into him!"

"What?" Inferno was glancing between Starscream and Red Alert, his expression baffled. "Red, is he saying what I _think_ he is?"

Skyfire turned a questioning glance on Starscream, who merely shrugged. "You'll notice they're not shooting at us anymore," he muttered. Then, raising his voice, he called, "Oh dear—Red Alert, have I made you blush? Not that I blame you. Especially seeing as you've brought your steady. I wonder what he'd think if he knew the full details of our… _time…_ together?"

"Shut UP!" Red Alert spun to fire at him, and Inferno, taking advantage of his temporary distraction, grabbed hold of his gun and wrenched it from his hand. 

Ironhide stepped in, seized Red Alert's arms, and pinned them behind his back. "Any of you boys wanna explain what the frag this is about?"

 _"Him!"_ Red Alert fixed a withering glare on Starscream. His cheekplates had, indeed, taken on the distinct pinkish tinge that Skyfire had come to recognize him as a sign of distress or embarrassment. "It's _him!_ He's the one who's in my head! Arrgh—get out!"

"Skyfire! Watch out!" Ironhide's shout of warning came a nanoklik too late. A strong arm looped around Skyfire's throat from behind, and he felt the a rifle's blunt muzzle pressed hard to his temple. While everyone else was arguing, Starscream had somehow managed to free himself.

"One false move, and you Autobots will lose your taxi service," Starscream warned. "How _ever_ would you get around without him?"

"Auto-destruct sequence in progress," the voice intoned above their heads. "One minute and counting."

"Now he's got Skyfire!" Red Alert babbled. He was clutching at his horns, which were sparking between his fingers. "Are you all blind? Don't you see what's happening? He takes over minds! He's been in my head ever since he used me to help steal the Negavator, and—"

"Ah yes," Starscream interrupted, "but we both know that isn't _all_ I used you for, now is it Red?"

"Shut _up,_ Starscream!" This time it was Ironhide saying it. "Red, what do you mean he's in your head? How?"

"I don't know how he does it," Red Alert said. He shook his helm, as if trying to break free of something. "I just know he's in there—somehow. And now he's in Skyfire's head, too."

"Indeed," Starscream agreed, sounding pleased. "And I must say my newest slave is performing _most_ admirably! Skyfire darling, please—blast them for me." 

Skyfire hesitated. A knee jabbed him sharply in the small of his back, and Starscream hissed, "Just fragging aim your weapon." 

And Skyfire did.

Later, he would marvel at how natural it had felt. And how Starscream's arm, locked across his throat, had felt reassuring rather than threatening. There was some deep, instinctive part of him that innately trusted Starscream, regardless of how insane that seemed to the logical part of his mind.

"Should. I. Shoot. Now?" Skyfire asked. He kept his voice carefully monotone, as he imagined someone might if their mind was, in fact, being controlled.

"Auto-destruct sequence in progress. Forty-five seconds, and counting."

"Please—address me as your Master," Starscream replied. And with his being so close, Skyfire couldn't help but feel the ripple of humor that swelled through his field. Starscream was actually having fun. "And yes, you probably should," he added in a low voice, "but right now I'd settle for just getting the Pits out of here."

"Yes, Master," Skyfire intoned. He rose from his knees, and felt Starscream's legs tighten around him. If he took off now he'd end the stalemate, and the other three Autobots would—he hoped—have the good sense to leave. He was about to engage his thrusters when the floor trembled. There was an awful, grinding shriek from somewhere high above, and chunks of debris began raining down from the ceiling.

"Auto-destruct sequence in progress. Thirty-five seconds, and counting."

"Don't just stand there!" Red Alert shouted. "Blast him!"

It wasn't entirely clear which "him" he meant, but when he grabbed Inferno's gun and fired it, his blast seemed aimed more or less at Starscream. Skyfire angled himself away from the shot and returned fire, blowing a chunk from the edge of the elevator platform in front of the three Autobots' feet.

"Go!" he shouted at them. "Drive! Get out of here!"

"Thirty seconds, and counting."

Ironhide, at least, seemed to recognize the wisdom of Skyfire's suggestion. He seized Red Alert's shoulder and shoved him bodily into Inferno's arms. "Carry him!" he ordered. He transformed, tires spraying chunks of rubble as he took off in the direction from which they'd come. Inferno transformed as well, catching Red Alert across the hood of his firetruck form as he roared after Ironhide.

"Twenty-five seconds, and counting."

"I sure hope they make it," Skyfire said.

"I sure hope _we_ make it!" Starscream shot back.

"We?" Skyfire echoed, teasing him. Funny how easily that came, in spite of everything. 

Starscream made a noise that was half snort, half growl. "Never mind that, just fly!"

"Twenty seconds, and counting."

Skyfire fired his thrusters. Starscream fired his, too, giving them a little extra lift as they rose toward the ceiling, and the patch of sky grew larger. They were going to make it—barely.

And then the roof caved in.

Debris pelted down on them, forcing Skyfire to lose altitude. A heavy chunk of cement struck his injured shoulder. He staggered in midair, and a falling beam punched through his thigh like a javelin. A thick spray of energon erupted from the wound, indicating that it had breached a major artery. Starscream cried out in pain, and Skyfire guessed that he'd been hit, too.

"Fifteen seconds, and counting."

"Starscream!" Skyfire yelled. "You shoot! I'll fly."

"Twelve seconds."

"Right!" Starscream fired upward, vaporizing the next round of ceiling material before it had a chance to crush them. Skyfire punched his thrusters to full power and barreled toward one of those ever-widening gaps of sky.

"Ten seconds."

They shot through.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starscream demonstrates a quick-and-dirty method of field repair, the Decepticons belatedly come to his rescue, and the dreaded Robo-Smasher turns out to be pretty much what we always figured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a short chapter this time, but next week's will make up for it (and then some!) Dubious spoilers for the episode, "The Secret of Omega Supreme." Endless thanks to Wrenchwench and Novaspark for their beta assistance!

"Eight seconds."

The disembodied voice faded with distance as Skyfire cleared the gap in the roof and shot skyward. 

"Keep going!" Starscream shouted, still clinging to his back.  
Skyfire was trying to, but the wound in his thigh was spurting thick gouts of energon and he could feel himself losing speed. Starscream shifted against his back, aimed one of his rifles at the wound, and fired. The blast, which was clearly on a low power setting since it didn't instantly amputate his leg, was almost unbelievably painful. It did, however, cauterize the severed artery.   
Skyfire recovered his momentum just as the base erupted in an explosion that seemed to rock the foundations of reality itself. He waited for the inevitable shockwave and angled his wings to let it drive them higher. They rode eruption in the same way he'd watched condors riding high desert thermals above Autobot headquarters.

Eventually their ascent slowed, and they were left floating. Skyfire engaged his anti-gravs so all it took was a light, occasional blast from his thrusters to counter the pull of gravity. Starscream's arms were still locked around him, and Skyfire could feel him shaking. At first he thought it was with fear, but when he craned his neck around to look at him, he realized Starscream was actually laughing, and that the reason he hadn't been able to tell was because his audials had shut down. He onlined them, and they crackled back to life with a staticky "pop."

"That was fun!" Starscream exclaimed.

And Skyfire started to laugh, too. He couldn't help himself. It swelled from a place deep inside as relief bordering on hysteria swept through him. "You… you're crazy," he managed, finally, once he'd regained some control over his vocalizer.

"No sense denying it." Starscream had relaxed against his back, and somehow, that felt completely natural. As if no time had passed.

"Are you all right?" Skyfire asked, though the answer was somewhat self-evident. One of Starscream's wings was crumpled, and he was leaking energon in a bunch of places. Most of the damage looked fairly superficial except for his leg, which was a mangled, bleeding mess. "Ratchet can fix that up for you," Skyfire said, without thinking.

Starscream froze; then hastily disentangled himself. "What are you talking about? Are you insane?"

"Sorry, I just—"

"What? Thought I was going to become one of _you_ from now on?"

They faced each other, balancing on their thrusters. The mesa was barely visible, obscured by the seething dust cloud left by the explosion. There were no aircraft in sight, and any birds that might have been around had obviously fled. They had the sky to themselves. 

"Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea," Skyfire said. "Your people left you to die." 

"And yours were going to execute me!" Starscream flung back at him. "You're just _convinced_ that your Autobot buddies are better than we are. Well, they're not! They just use prettier words for it. It's time you learned, Skyfire—before you get that big, thick head of yours blown off!"

"So nothing's changed, then? You go your way, I go mine?"

"What did you expect? You made your choice! Apparently, you'd rather be buried in ice than be at my side. And, you'd rather be ferrying your Autobot pals around than doing something meaningful!"

"Something meaningful, like destroying the Earth?"

"Something meaningful, like ruling the universe!"

"I have no interest in ruling—anything." 

"And that's exactly your problem! It's rule or _be_ ruled, Skyfire—you're either the master or the slave. That's how it works now."

"I don't believe that," Skyfire said. "There are other choices."

"Oh yes, there is a third choice. It's known as death. Is that what you want? Oh, silly me! You already chose that."

They glared at each other. Finally, Skyfire vented a long sigh. "So… this is it, then."

Starscream stared at him for a long moment. Then glanced away. Then back again, his expression hardening into a scowl. "Just _go!"_

Skyfire bowed his head. There were only a few meters of air between them, and yet the divide seemed infinite. "All right," he said, at last. "But first, tell me what you did to Red."

For a moment, Starscream looked as if he was trying to match the name with a memory. "Oh… _that,"_ he said finally, with a smirk. "Nothing he didn't enjoy, I can assure you." He regarded Skyfire speculatively. "Don't tell me you're jealous. Are you?"

Skyfire was, a little. Well, maybe more than a little. But this was hardly the time or the place. "You know why I'm asking," he said.

"Fine! If I tell you, will you promise to leave?"

Skyfire never got a chance to answer. A sudden roar of jet engines sounded overhead, and he glanced up to see five Seekers diving toward them with Soundwave and Megatron close behind. 

"Too late," Starscream muttered. "It's always just too fragging late."

Skyfire wasn't particularly surprised when he saw that both Starscream's rifles were now pointing at his chest. He raised his hands in the universal gesture of surrender, and waited to be made their prisoner.

* * *

The sound of voices pulled him awake. He'd managed, somehow, to slip into a light recharge in spite of his uncomfortable position. He held his vents, and listened. The voices were muffled by the cell's thick walls and couldn't make out the words, but he could tell that one of the speakers was Starscream. The conversation ended, and he heard footsteps approaching his cell door. 

Skyfire straightened instinctively when he heard the locking mechanism click. The door swung open, and Starscream stalked in. He was no longer limping. The damage to his leg had been patched, and his crumpled wing had, it seemed, been hammered into a semblance of straightness. He slammed the door, waited a beat, and turned to Skyfire. "I don't have much time," he announced. "How's your wing? Can you fly?"

Skyfire glanced at his wing, the one that Red Alert had shot during the standoff. Dirge had patched it for the long flight to Decepticon Headquarters, but it was a temporary field patch, not intended for long-term wear. "Not very far. Why, am I going somewhere?"

"Very funny." Starscream pulled a small repair kit from his cockpit canopy, dropped to one knee, and began stripping the temporary patch from Skyfire's wing. Skyfire watched him work with a detached kind of fascination. Starscream was _good_ at this. Then again, he was good at most things. 

"Why are you doing this?" he asked. "Aren't they just going to kill me?"

Starscream's hands froze, and he glared at Skyfire. "Is that what you want?"

"No!"

"Good. Then shut up and let me fix you. Unless you're thinking about switching teams— _again_ —in which case I could probably get you into the actual repair bay."

"You're just... letting me go?"

"No! I'm getting you the frag out of here before Megatron acts on his stupid ideas about reprogramming you." 

"Reprogramming?" Skyfire shuddered. "I think I'd rather be dead."

"Yes, well you made _that_ perfectly clear," Starscream bit out. His field crackled with bursts of wounded rage, but his hands held steady as they pressed a new, stronger patch to Skyfire's wing. "Don't worry," he added bitterly. "If it were that easy, Megatron would have done it to me ages ago."

Skyfire frowned. "I thought the Decepticons had perfected that in the early years of the war," he said, recalling from the history files he'd studied. "Wasn't there a device called the... Robo-Smasher?"

Starscream rocked back on his heels, stared at him—then threw his head back and howled with laughter. "Oh dear," he said at last, wiping traces of dampness from around his optics. "What nonsense have your Auto-buddies been telling you?"

"What do you mean?" Skyfire asked. "Are you saying it's not true?"

"As charmingly gullible as ever, I see. Of course it's not true! Oh, there was a machine _called_ the Robo-Smasher, but it was war propaganda. _Brilliant_ war propaganda, if I do say so myself—but nothing more."

Skyfire mulled this over while Starscream turned his attention to the deep puncture wound on his leg. "If it was just a hoax," he said finally, "why would the story have persisted this long?"

Starscream was quiet for so long that Skyfire began to think that he wasn't going to answer. Then his wings rose and fell in a half-shrug. "Maybe your friends find it more convenient to believe in fairy tales than to accept the idea that someone might become an 'evil Decepticon' voluntarily." He gave Skyfire a searing look. "It's so much worse when someone betrays you by his own free will."

And there it was. They weren't really talking about ancient history. But then, Skyfire had already known that. "I didn't," he whispered. "I didn't betray you."

"Really? Oh, let me guess—you were cleverly _pretending_ to change sides so that you could spy for us. Is that it?"

"No, Starscream; I mean, I didn't betray _you."_

Starscream glared at the wall. "That isn't for you to decide." He said it quietly, with a desolate finality that cut Skyfire to his core. 

He was right, Skyfire thought. It wasn't for him to say, at all. "Starscream," he began. "I—"

Starscream banged a small cannister of energon down on the floor in front of him. "It's all I could steal without anyone noticing," he said, "but it should be enough to get you back to your… _friends."_

"Starscream—"

"No!" Starscream sprang to his feet. "I don't want to hear it! You have no idea what it took to find you, how _hard_ it was getting you back! I thought—" he stopped himself. "I don't know _what_ the Pits I was thinking, just drink up so we can get you out of here! And—" he made a slicing gesture, "I'd appreciate if you'd at least _try_ to stop getting captured! I'm sick of organizing your escapes."

Starscream was venting hard, his fists clenched at his sides. The tremors cascading through his field manifested as quivers along the tips of his wings, and Skyfire recalled his impression from earlier, when Starscream had first entered his cell and had seemed so powerful, so in control. The proud Decepticon warrior, fully in his element. How could he have been so blind? How could he possibly have missed _this?_

Perhaps he, too, was guilty of seeing only what he wished to see. He'd wanted to believe that Starscream was happy in his new life, just as he'd claimed. But Skyfire had _seen_ Starscream happy, and this wasn't even close. His spark twisted painfully in his chest. He wanted to reach out, soothe away some of this hurt that he'd caused, but his manacles held firm. 

"Starscream," he said, trying again, and was about to say more when Starscream interrupted.

"Oh! Hold on." He leaned forward and blasted the connectors that held Skyfire's manacles to the wall. "I'll come up with a cover story later," he said, almost to himself. "Maybe you got one of my rifles away from me, and used it to blow the—"

Skyfire grabbed his shoulders. It was a decision made between one split second and the next, and probably the worst mistake of his life, but just for that moment he didn't care. He spun Starscream around and pushed him back against the wall.

"Skyfire! What the Pits are you—"

"Starscream," Skyfire said, and kissed him. Starscream froze. Not kissing back, not moving at all. But then he made a muffled, indignant sound of protest and shoved hard against Skyfire's chest, trying to wriggle free. 

"Are you insane?" he spat, once Skyfire finally released his mouth. "What the—what are you thinking? We don't have _time_ for this!"

But Skyfire had noticed that he'd stopped struggling, and that his hands, no longer balled against Skyfire's chest, were sliding up to rest on his shoulders. Skyfire tipped their forehelms together, his hand stroking along the contour line of Starscream's cheekplate. 

"Tell me you don't want this, and I'll stop." 

Starscream's mouth moved silently, as if he was having a hard time getting his vocalizer to work. He looked baffled, and stunned and... _something._ Something that bordered on confusion. As if, Skyfire thought uneasily, the words he'd just said were not at all what Starscream was used to hearing. An icy dread coiled through his internals, and took a step back. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should never have—"

He never got a chance to finish. Starscream lunged at him, seized his arms, spun him around, and slammed him back against the wall, reversing their positions. Then he was grasping either side of Skyfire's chin-guard and dragging him down into a ferocious kiss.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our tale proceeds to earn its rating...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers here, just heaps o' hot gay robot loving. Which is really why we're all here, right? ;-) Well actually, I'm a tad nervous; this is the first erotica I've posted for this fandom and this scene, in particular, comes straight from my heart. Probably goes without saying, but warnings apply for sticky, explicit sex. 
> 
> Many thanks to Wrenchwench, Novaspark and Cee for their wonderful beta-reading, feedback and proofing assistance.

There was nothing tender about the kiss. Starscream's mouth ground into Skyfire's, hard enough to bruise protoform. Skyfire opened for it, accepting the sharp press of dentae against his sensitive lips and then the sudden, forceful intrusion of Starscream's glossa into his mouth. It wasn't one of the slow, melting kisses he remembered. But that was long ago, he knew, and this too was incredible, in its own way.

He reached to cradle the back of Starscream's helm, inviting him deeper. Starscream grabbed his wrist and used the dangling end of his severed manacle to pin his arm to the wall. Skyfire understood. He lifted his other arm, mirroring the same gesture, and offered his surrender for the second time that day. Starscream pinned that arm, too, and pushed against him, driving a knee between his legs and crushing their pelvic assemblies together. 

His weight sharply compressed Skyfire's spike within its housing, and the sudden jolt of pleasure was too much, almost painful, interior walls scraping against sensor nodes that had been left untouched for so long. Skyfire groaned. Starscream released one of his arms and shoved a finger in his mouth. Skyfire welcomed the invasion, sucking the digit in as far as it would go. Starscream added a second, and Skyfire accepted that one, too, sucking on them rhythmically as he would Starscream's spike. 

He wriggled his glossa suggestively in the gap between the two fingers, and Starscream's lithe form melted against him, his vents growing ragged with want. Starscream withdrew his fingers and kissed him again, this time not quite as roughly. His nips and bites were less punishing now, more seeking. Eliciting pleasure, while at the same time testing Skyfire's limits. Right now, Skyfire felt like he had no limits. He felt like he was flying. Even here, trapped in the brig of a crashed spaceship at the bottom of Earth's Pacific Ocean, he felt freer than he had in months. 

A groan rose from somewhere deep in his chest, and Starscream answered with a sweet, raspy little sigh, muffled against his mouth. His hands caught Skyfire's shoulders and pushed him down, and Skyfire sank to the floor with his back against the wall. A sharp click rang through the silence as Starscream opened the nearly invisible panel at his groin, and his spike, already half-pressurized inside its housing, sprang free. He planted his hands on the wall, managing to tower over Skyfire in spite of the difference in their heights, and thrust his hips forward in wordless demand. 

It was a demand Skyfire was all too happy to answer. He curled his hand around the sleek length, loving its heft and the satin glide of protoform beneath his digits, as well as the little, stifled noises that Starscream made. The way he rocked into Skyfire's hand, too, and—more than anything—the sight of his spike as it swelled to full hardness against his palm.

Starscream's spike was nothing less than a work of art. Skyfire had always thought so, right from his very first glimpse. As exquisitely dangerous-looking as the rest of him, it was charcoal gray like his face with a row of scarlet bio-lights marking the sensor nodes that lay studded along its underside. These glowed like runway lights in the cell's dim lighting, as if to say, "touch here."

Skyfire clenched and released his fingers in a slow wave, squeezing Starscream's length from root to tip while his thumb drew light, teasing circles across his crown. Starscream whimpered and thrust into his hand, begging for more. Skyfire pressed his glossa to the base of his spike and, with torturous slowness, dragged it up the underside, pausing to lightly flick each of those tiny red stars as he went.

His reward, when he reached the tip, was a silver droplet of early transfluid which he lapped up, savoring the sharp, familiar taste. The fluid stung his lips where Starscream had bitten them, but even that was good in its own way. He vented warm air over Starscream's moistened length and watched in delight as the line of sensor nodes tightened in response. Starscream made a noise that was half whimper, half growl, and bumped against his lips in a none-too-subtle demand. 

"We don't have all night, you know." 

The ragged hitch in his voice made Skyfire smile. There was a part of him that longed to tease Starscream just a little more, but then it occurred to him how very, _very_ long Starscream had been waiting for this. He relented and molded his lips around the flared head, curling his glossa beneath to tickle the sensitive notch below the crown, and then—when he felt Starscream's legs begin to quiver—he sucked him all the way in to the back of his throat. 

Starscream gave a cry and sagged forward, clawing at the wall for support. His fans were a deafening roar and the heat cascading from his frame felt like a hot desert sun, baking into Skyfire's plating. Skyfire caught his hip to steady him for a moment—just _one_ moment—before he began to tighten and release the cables in his throat, relentlessly squeezing and massaging the beautiful length that had, by some miracle of fate, found its way inside his mouth. 

He tugged Starscream's hip to let him know that it was okay to thrust into his mouth, and Starscream responded with a startled noise, as if he'd become so transfixed that the idea of thrusting simply hadn't occurred to him. He corrected his oversight with a quick, shallow push, followed by a deeper one. Skyfire met both, matching Starscream's rhythm with long, firm draws and milking him for the bursts of tartness that swelled across his glossa with each thrust.

He grasped Starscream's other hip, too, not in any attempt to control his movements but wanting simply to experience them as fully as he could, to lose himself in this moment. If he didn't survive this night, if this turned out to be his last act before joining the Allspark, it was worth it. He knew, now. This was who he was, and where he belonged. He allowed his hands to drift, exploring the sleek lines of Starscream's flank assembly, and then, since his hands were in the neighborhood anyway, he slipped one between Starscream's legs to lightly stroke his rear interface panel.

Starscream froze. "Sky," he rasped. It was a warning, and Skyfire knew it. He drew his hand away and Starscream's tension eased, but Skyfire felt a return of that cold, uneasy feeling in his spark.

Something definitely had changed. Well, _many_ things had, and Skyfire had tried to stop being surprised by them. But the thought that Starscream might ever lose his enjoyment for being touched in that particular spot seemed, well… _wrong._ So wrong that Skyfire dreaded to think what could have happened to change something that had always been so basic to his nature. 

Of course, he couldn't ask. So he lavished his full attention on Starscream's spike instead, savoring its weight and the fullness of it in his mouth, and rolling his glossa in lascivious waves against its underside—until Starscream trembled and grabbed his shoulders, his knees buckling. 

"Stop-stop-stop-stop!" 

Skyfire eased off him. "Okay," he whispered, and pressed a regretful kiss to Starscream's crown as he let go. Starscream was bent nearly double, his whole body quaking. He braced an arm against the wall, his fans stuttering as he visibly dragged himself back from the brink of overload. Skyfire rubbed little circles against his flank, soothing him. 

And then, to his surprise, Starscream's hand came down and covered his. Not with any force this time, just a little squeeze. It was so like their old way. Skyfire's chest tightened, and he couldn't hold back from kissing everywhere he could reach—like _he_ used to. He kissed Starscream's thighs, and the sensitive junction where his jet form's nosecone tucked into his pelvic assembly, and then the lower curve of his cockpit canopy, nipping gently at the seals around its edges. 

_I love you._

The words rose into his throat, but he didn't dare say them for fear they might shatter the moment's fragile perfection.

Starscream tugged his hand. "Up," he ordered. 

As Skyfire pushed himself up the wall, he quickly became aware of two things. One was that his legs weren't working any better than Starscream's. Maybe a bit worse, actually. His damaged leg, in particular, had set up a dull throbbing, and it trembled noticeably when he put his weight upon it. The other was that his spike had grown so painfully erect inside its housing that he could barely stand anyway.

Starscream caught his arm, half supporting him as he turned him to face the wall. His other hand glided down the length of Skyfire's back as Skyfire leaned forward, bracing his forearms in preparation for what he knew was coming. He wasn't really surprised by the slickness he felt around his rear panel when Starscream stroked him there. Maybe Starscream was surprised by it, though, because Skyfire felt a jolt of—something—ripple through his field.

"You're all lubed up," he murmured softly, almost wonderingly.

"For you," Skyfire answered him.

Starscream seemed to hesitate for a moment, then tapped a finger lightly against the panel. Skyfire opened for him, and sighed when a blunt digit-tip circled his entrance. The dense wreath of sensor nodes seemed to come alight at Starscream's touch, and a sweet ache kindled in the depths of his core. He braced his legs farther apart and pushed against Starscream's hand, tilting his aft to invite a deeper touch.The finger pressed in, and he groaned.

Starscream's other hand slipped beneath him, tracing the edges of the panel that concealed his spike. "Open," he commanded, and Skyfire's spike, painfully jammed as it was within its housing, sprang into his hand the moment the panel slid aside. Starscream's fingers wrapped around its girth, and there was an audible whistle of air through his intakes. 

"I'd forgotten how _big_ you are!" 

He sounded somehow much younger, and Skyfire couldn't help but smile as he remembered Starscream reacting in exactly this way when he saw his spike for the very first time. Until that point, Skyfire had found his size to be a nuisance more than anything. Most mechs seemed intimidated by it, or to take it as a challenge to their virility, but Starscream, who really _had_ been young then, had responded with delight—as if Skyfire had just given him the finest present he ever could have hoped for, and he was reacting precisely the same way now.

His fingers swept Skyfire's length, exploring the segmented contours with eager, reverent touches and lingering over each of the sensor clusters, which he triggered with expert care. His palm skimmed Skyfire's crown and found the upswell of fluid leaking from the tip, which he smeared down the length of him, slicking him to his base. At the same time, the digit that was working its way inside Skyfire's channel found his first caliper ring, which clenched at his touch, gripping tight. Starscream made an appreciative sound. 

"I want to be in you."

"I want that, too."

Skyfire was surprised by the sound of his own voice, how it quivered and was edged with static. He rocked onto Starscream's finger, pulling it deeper, and a second digit burrowed its way in to join the first. Starscream found the sensor cluster just beyond the first ring and raked his fingertips over it in just the way that Skyfire had always loved.

"Primus!" Skyfire's knees buckled and he sagged forward, grabbing the wall for support.

"I told you to call me master," Starscream said. His voice was a rasping purr, and he sounded immensely pleased with himself. "It's far less formal."

Skyfire laughed. "As you wish—my master."

"Oh, _your_ master. I like that." Starscream spread his fingers, stretching the ring. Skyfire shuttered his optics, sadness and pleasure rising to a sharp ache behind his chestplate. Past and present were colliding here, in this moment that they had managed to steal from the reality of their lives, and he already knew there was no way to hold on to any of it.

Starscream's cool lips brushed against his back. "Ready?"

Skyfire nodded and then, guessing that Starscream couldn't see that, he reached back and caught hold of his hip, giving it a gentle tug. "Come inside."

Starscream's fingers slipped out of him. He shifted a little, and Skyfire felt the blunt pressure of his spike against his entrance. Skyfire pushed back onto it and was startled by a sharp, burning sensation as it stretched his outer ring. He gasped, flinching away in spite of himself.

Starscream eased back. "Hurts?" 

"I… it's okay. I just forgot how long it's been."

He felt a tightening through Starscream's field, a kind of anguished tension. The sheer magnitude of time that had passed during their long separation suddenly felt like a physical presence in the room, a crushing weight bearing down on both of them. Skyfire's spark clenched, and he ached for Starscream with a fierce tenderness.

"Come," he said again. "Please."

Starscream held back, as if he was lingering on a threshold of some kind—then pushed. Skyfire held himself steady, gritting his dentae as he willed himself not to pull away. The outer ring spasmed, then yielded as Starscream breached it and continued pressing inward, slowly filling him to his first ring. A sweet burn followed as Starscream nudged through and scored the nest of sensors that lay just beyond, and Skyfire felt the walls of his channel adjust, calipers molding greedily to Starscream's girth. 

The second ring, which Starscream hadn't been able to reach with his fingers, wasn't as forgiving. It contracted almost violently, wrenching a pained gasp from both of them. Starscream took hold of Skyfire's spike again and pumped him with firm, steady strokes as he continued to advance.

Skyfire squeezed his optics shut, moisture stinging their edges. He could hear his vents coming in shaky gusts, and it was almost too overwhelming; the sensation of being speared from within, the heat pooling in his belly, and the tantalizing rhythm of Starscream's hand on his spike—and the pressure of Starscream's other arm locked around his waist, gripping and guiding him.

The third, final ring opened with unexpected suddenness. Skyfire lurched forward and Starscream thumped against his back, his hips landing flush against Skyfire's aft. They both stilled. The only sound in the room was the low, unsteady thrum of their fans. Skyfire's legs were shaking, his damaged thigh starting to complain of his awkward, crouched position.

Starscream stroked lazily along his shaft, his touch almost soothing. "I wish we had more time," he said. There was such wistfulness in his tone that Skyfire couldn't keep from reaching for his other hand, the one gripping his waist, and giving it a squeeze. 

"Make love to me."

Starscream was silent for a moment, still lightly pumping him. "You do realize," he finally said, "that nearly everyone else in the known universe calls this fragging?"

Skyfire smiled. "Then please, oh master. Frag me."

Starscream laughed. It was his real laugh, the one that Skyfire remembered from so long ago. It was beautiful to hear, and with the two of them joined as they were, it sent reverberations from Skyfire's core to encompass his whole body, his whole being. 

"As you wish," Starscream said—and drove into him. 

The first strokes were agony. Starscream's thickness was harsh, almost abrasive, grazing sensor nodes that had lain dormant for, literally, aeons. It felt right, though; it felt perfect. This was the pain of their long separation manifesting within him, and Skyfire sank into it, accepting it and letting it fill him. He couldn't tell if the sounds coming from him were sobs or pleas, though he suspected they were probably both. 

"Go on," Starscream whispered. "Scream for me. Like I'm torturing you."

Skyfire wondered if Starscream realized how close that was to the truth, but then remembered that there was probably a guard in the corridor outside, listening. He let out a yell, and found that he didn't really have to try very hard to sound like he was in pain.

"Ah, you can do better than that." 

Starscream shifted his stance, pulling Skyfire's hips down so that he was driving into him from a lower angle, and Skyfire really did scream—though this time, it definitely wasn't with pain. Each thrust was bringing Starscream up against the sensor cluster that he'd triggered earlier with his fingers, though the blunt pressure of his spike pounding against it was an entirely different sensation. 

Arcs of searing heat rocketed from Skyfire's core, setting his neural networks on fire with every thrust, and the last remnants of discomfort faded into an intense heat that bloomed everywhere Starscream was touching him, inside and out. It was like having lightning trapped inside him. His body knew Starscream's, it remembered, and his spark did too. It felt like it was burning a hole in his chest as it reached for its mate, its twin.

The pressure was rising and he knew he couldn't last like this, not when he hadn't been touched for so long. He reached again for Starscream's hand, wanting to hold it one last time, but then his damaged leg gave out. He crashed to his knees and Starscream stayed right with him, not missing a beat. They surged together, Skyfire now kneeling above Starscream's lap and Starscream's cheek pressed to the juncture where Skyfire's wing met his shoulder. 

Skyfire could hear the shuddering rasp of Starscream's voice, lost in pleasure, and it was so beautiful. It took the last of his concentration, but he managed to ripple the inner walls of his channel in time with their thrusts. Starscream bit his shoulder, muffling a scream, and Skyfire screamed too, letting his voice reverberate within the enclosed space.

"Try to... ah! Sound less... like you're about to overload," Starscream advised.

"I... _am!"_ Skyfire gasped. It was the most he could manage to say. 

A thrill of pleasure rippled through Starscream's field; it felt like being engulfed in a tiny sunrise. His hand slipped to the base of Skyfire's spike and dug in sharply, nimble fingers finding a hidden trigger point, and Skyfire's impending climax receded back to a bearable level of arousal. 

"There," Starscream murmured. "Better?"

Skyfire nodded. He wasn't sure if "better" was exactly the word he would have used, but he supposed there was no reason in the universe to point out that what Starscream had just done was only going to prolong this thing that they supposedly didn't have time for. Starscream eased out of him, and Skyfire definitely _was_ about to voice his objection to _that,_ when Starscream grasped his shoulders and turned them, leaning up to kiss him.

He wasn't rough this time. His glossa probed Skyfire's lips, seeking entrance, and when Skyfire opened, he stroked all the bruised, swollen places inside his mouth as if he was trying to soothe them. Skyfire cupped the side of his face, his thumb tracing the edge of his cheek-guard as he quested with his own glossa, begging entrance in return. Starscream opened for him with a small, pleasured sigh, and his glossa curled around Skyfire's in a welcoming caress.

But then he pushed against Skyfire's shoulders, urging him down. "On your back," he ordered softly.

Skyfire did as he asked, and drew his knees up. Starscream knelt between his legs, pushed into him again, and this time, now that it didn't hurt, Skyfire was able to really feel him. It was every bit as good as it always had been, with the same delicious, hot fullness, and the same exquisite stretch of his caliper rings molding themselves to the heavy contours of Starscream's spike. He wrapped his legs around Starscream's back and rocked his hips to meet his thrusts.

This position was far more comfortable, and offered the added benefit of actually being able to see Starscream. Watching him had always been one of Skyfire's greatest pleasures, particularly when they made love. The mesmerizing snap and glide of Starscream's hips as their bodies moved, straining as one, and the way each stroke transferred through his frame to become the surge of his chest, the rise of his shoulders; the subtle quivers along his wings, and the ever-shifting play of expressions across his beautiful, dark face.

Their new position had another advantage, too, one that clearly wasn't lost on Starscream because he grasped Skyfire's knees, pushed them to his chest, realigned himself and, with stunning precision, slammed down against the ceiling node at the apex of Skyfire's channel. It was like having volcano erupt inside him. Liquid heat surged from his core and tore through every circuit of his body, burning him up from the inside.

Skyfire threw his head back with a roar. He was pretty sure no one listening could possibly mistake his shout from the sound of someone being tortured, but he also couldn't bring himself to care at this point. He groped for Starscream's shoulder, seeking an anchor in the storm of sensation, and Starscream grabbed his hand and pinned it to the floor beside his head.

Starscream leaned over him, wings blocking the light as he drove into him, pummeling his ceiling node again and again. His expression was caught between a smirk of triumph and something else, an indefinable emotion that hovered in his field like a scarlet mist. He grasped Skyfire's spike with his free hand, squeezing its length with a fierce possessiveness as he pumped in time with his thrusts. 

He looked so beautiful and so dangerous. Every inch the Decepticon warrior, the deadly Seeker, the sky fighter. Except that the fingers of his other hand were now working their way between Skyfire's where he held his hand pinned to the floor, and he was still _Starscream._ Still the partner, friend and lover Skyfire ached for, the one he'd dreamed of through all those years in the ice. Starscream was all those things—he was everything. Past and present merged, became one in the narrowing of Starscream's optics, the wicked curve of his smile as he whispered, 

_"You_ shoot. I'll fly."

Skyfire wrapped his fingers around Starscream's, gripped tight, and surrendered. "Take me there."

He could feel the difference now. When Starscream rocked into him, he wasn't holding back. He was taking him into orbit—taking both of them, and all Skyfire could do was hang on. He put his free hand on Starscream's flank just to feel his hips pistoning against him, every surge bringing him crashing against that solar furnace that he'd kindled at Skyfire's apex. 

Skyfire could feel the molten heat spreading to encompass his whole frame, and he tried to hold on to every moment, burn each detail into his memory just in case this really was their last time. The ferocious, almost painful grip Starscream kept on his hand and the small, ragged sounds that tore from his throat with each thrust; the charged scent of ozone and the seamless exchange of heat and motion as their bodies surged together, becoming one.

He couldn't hold on for long. His conscious awareness folded in on itself, collapsing down to the place where they were joined. The pressure rose—and crested—and then he was falling. Spinning helplessly through space as the sunburst inside him went supernova. With his last coherent thought, he reached through their bond and sent Starscream a memory-image of the two of them falling, their joined bodies heating as the atmosphere took hold and made them glow together, like a star.

Then he was gone.

Only dimly aware of the spill of hot liquid across his belly or the harsh cry erupting from his throat. He arched, legs clamping hard over Starscream's back as his vision darkened and he was out, spinning among the stars. When he came out of freefall, it was with the realization that Starscream was still bucking into him, his frame trembling as his thrusts became shorter, more erratic. His optics, locked on Skyfire's, were glowing ember-bright in the half darkened room, and Skyfire saw that he was biting his lips to keep from screaming. 

Skyfire wanted so much to kiss him. He'd always regretted that the difference in their heights made it impossible for them to kiss while Starscream was inside him. He kissed the palm of his free hand instead, and clamped it over Starscream's mouth.

"It's okay, I'll catch you."

He contracted his channel, pulling Starscream as deep as he would go and rippled his calipers fiercely, squeezing along his length in a wave. Starscream howled. His body quaked, and Skyfire shuttered his optics to savor the incredible explosion of heat inside his valve. He locked his arms and legs around Starscream, catching his weight when he sagged against him. 

Starscream was shuddering to the tips of his wings. Skyfire hooked one leg between his, wanting to hold him inside for just a moment longer. His hands felt unfamiliar, almost new, as he glided them over Starscream's back, stroking everywhere he could reach. Wings, shoulders, intakes. The twin crest ridges atop his helm. Mapping, memorizing.

His joints felt loosened, and his frame seemed lighter. It was if he'd been carrying some remnant of the arctic permafrost inside him, a remnant that had vaporized with the heat of their joining. He wasn't frozen in place anymore, or in time. And he wasn't holding back. But now, more than anything, he wanted to hold on. If he could.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skyfire hides some evidence, learns how to use a null-ray, and Thundercracker totally ruins Skywarp's day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler-free action-y goodness! Many thanks to [Novaspark](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Novaspark) for beta help.

_I love you._

Skyfire wanted to say it so much. The feeling burned inside him, but the words seemed, at once, too much and not enough. He let the emotion seep into his field instead, allowing Starscream to just feel it. Starscream made a little sound and burrowed against him, pressing his cheek to Skyfire's chest. 

"Sky..." 

"Dragonfly," Skyfire whispered back, lightly stroking the edge of one his wings. The old nickname seemed to have the desired effect. Starscream's arms tightened around his torso as another tremor shook through him. Then reality seemed to hit.

"Slag it! What are we _doing?"_

He sprang up and tucked himself away in what was, more or less, the same fluid action, and fixed a savage glare on Skyfire. "This is your fault, you distracted me! Get up!" When Skyfire did not instantly move from his position on the floor, Starscream seized his arm and, with astounding strength, dragged him to his feet. "Megatron has to be on his way back by now!"

"Megatron?" It actually took Skyfire a moment to recall who Starscream was talking about. "Back from where?"

"Oh." Starscream smirked. "He may have intercepted a distress beacon from an oil tanker that doesn't exist. The best part is that he decided to take Soundwave, since I was too damaged." He seized one of his shoulder-mounted rifles and twisted violently, wincing as it tore free, and threw it on the floor. "Step on it," he commanded.

Skyfire stared at the weapon. "Why would I do that?"

"Because you ripped it off my arm, obviously! Then crushed it under your foot while you grabbed my other—" Starscream made an audible grunt of pain as he wrenched the second rifle from his other arm, "and used it to blast out of your manacles. Then you took me as your prisoner."

"How would I do all that, if I was chained to the wall?"

"No one's even going to question it! Unless you screw it up, of course. Now stomp!"

Skyfire did, and flinched the weapon crumpled under the weight of his foot. Starscream, who seemed utterly unfazed by the destruction of what was, in a certain sense, a part of his body, shoved the second rifle into Skyfire's arms. 

"There's a manual trigger mechanism here," he explained, pointing to a control panel on the weapon's underside. "Now listen carefully. You are going to have to shoot me."

"What?" Skyfire almost dropped the rifle. "NO! I'm not going to shoot _anyone,_ let alone—"

"Yes! You are!" Starscream grasped the rifle in both hands and slammed it against Skyfire's chest. "If you don't then Megatron _will,_ once he figures this out! We have to make this look _good,_ do you understand?"

Skyfire stared at the rifle. It was heavier than it looked, and it felt all wrong in his hands. Like something foreign, something he would never understand, and that could not possibly belong to the body with which he'd just been so intimate. Yet Starscream's argument made sense.

"All right," he said, venting a sigh. He lifted the rifle, braced it awkwardly against his chest, and attempted to aim it at Starscream.

"Not _now!"_ Starscream shoved the barrel aside before Skyfire had a chance to shoot. "I'll tell you when." 

He shuttered his optics, a look of concentration overtaking his features. Then he scowled, stomped across the short distance between them, and grasped Skyfire's arm. _Now can you hear me?_ he demanded through their bond.

_Yes,_ Skyfire answered. Starscream's mind-voice sounded oddly distant, as though he was speaking from another room. Skyfire guessed it must be due to the age and frailty of the bond, but he couldn't hold back a smile as he felt the familiar whisper-touch of Starscream's thoughts against the edges of his. They were standing closer than Skyfire thought either of them had realized, as if their bodies were magnetically drawn to each other.

_Seems we have to touch in order for it to work,_ Starscream said, with a mental growl of frustration.

_I don't mind._

Starscream gave him a _look_ —one that conveyed amusement, irritation and desire, all in one glance. "That's how we need to talk once we walk through that door," he said, already striding toward it. "Are you ready?"

Skyfire hastily reached to tuck his spike away and noticed, in glancing down, that a generous splatter of his own transfluid was dripping down the front of his chassis. "Starscream, wait!"

Starscream glanced back. "What?" Then he seemed to realize. "Oh, _pits."_

"You've got some, too," Skyfire said, noticing that a fair quantity of the silvery liquid had also smeared onto Starscream's chest. The fact that his fuselage _was_ mostly silver helped to disguise it, at least here in the dimly-lit cell, but it wouldn't stand a close inspection. 

"What about your repair kit?" Skyfire suggested. "Do you have any wipes?"

"I have exactly _two."_

They were small ones too, Skyfire realized when Starscream pulled them out. 

"I have an idea," Skyfire said as he took the two little mesh-weave squares. He used them to wipe Starscream's chest as clean as he could make it, then stepped back to inspect his work.

"What about _that?"_ Starscream prodded, pointing to the broad, silver stripe painted down the center of Skyfire's nosecone assembly. 

Skyfire glanced down at it with a certain amount of pride. One of his favorite things about interfacing was, in fact, the mess, and the need for a leisurely visit to the washracks after, which usually led to more interfacing. Or, at least, it usually did in his and Starscream's case. Licking it off each other was even better, of course, when they had the luxury of time for such indulgences—which right now, they obviously did not.

Sighing, he reached for the small energon cannister that Starscream had brought. He opened it, took several quick gulps of the shimmering liquid, and glanced at Starscream. 

"You've been torturing me. Right?" 

Without waiting for an answer, he spilled the cannister's remaining contents down the front of his chest.

"Sky!" Starscream lunged to stop him, but it was too late. "Are you demented? You _needed_ that to get home!"

"I'll be fine," Skyfire said, and knew that he would be. He felt lighter than air; able fly anywhere and reach any height. Even Starscream's look of incredulous—worried—outrage buoyed his spirits beyond reason. The energon might have covered the outward evidence of their lovemaking, but the warmth it had kindled in his spark was just growing stronger. He shook the last few drops into the wound in his leg, hiding the repairs that Starscream had made, and bent to steal another quick kiss.

He loved how Starscream responded, leaning into his kiss almost reluctantly, as if he was doing it in spite of himself, and the way that his lips clung to Skyfire's. There was naked hunger in the way he kissed, as if this was something almost new. As if he hadn't been kissed— _really_ kissed—in a very long time. 

It would be dangerously easy to get distracted again. Skyfire could already feel renewed stirrings in his groin, which undoubtedly meant that Starscream was, by now, primed and ready to go. But he knew neither of them could afford the consequences, and it surprised him to realize that at some point in the past hour, his world had rearranged itself. His life meant something again. It had a purpose, one that he was ready to fight for.

"Are you ready?" he whispered against Starscream's mouth.

Starscream made a small, throaty noise and arched against him, which was certainly a yes—though not, Skyfire suspected, to the question he had intended. He smiled into their kiss, and then, with a pang of regret, spun Starscream around and pulled him back against his chest. He locked an arm across Starscream's throat and blasted the door with the rifle. An action that, to his surprise, had absolutely no effect.

"It's on the null-ray setting," Starscream explained, with an irritated growl. Skyfire couldn't tell if he was annoyed by the interrupted kiss or by Skyfire's failure to comprehend his weapon, though perhaps it was a bit of both. 

"You _still_ have the null ray?" Skyfire asked. 

He remembered only too well when Starscream had had his frame altered to accommodate the null ray. It was the most dangerous class of weapon that warframe mechs, such as Seekers, had been legally permitted to carry, a fact which Starscream had resented mightily. He hadn't had his shoulder rifles back then, of course, but had implemented the null ray more discreetly, through hidden slots in his forearms, in order to avoid drawing unwanted attention to his modification.

"Of course I still have it," Starscream grumbled, twisting a dial on the rifle barrel. "Here, try again."

This time, the results were nothing short of spectacular. The blast tore into the door's locking mechanism, which spat blinding arcs of pinkish energy and then exploded.

"Not bad," Starscream remarked. "We might make a Decepticon of you yet."

"Or, you could come with me," Skyfire retorted, dropping a kiss on the top of his helm. 

"Just—arrgh! Kick it down!"

Skyfire did, and the door fell with a satisfying, floor-shaking crash. He then pushed Starscream—who was now clawing at his arm, pretending to struggle—into the hall ahead of him, and found himself looking over the tops of Starscream's intakes at a very startled Thundercracker. 

"Hey!" Thundercracker raised one of his own rifles. "Drop that! Right now!"

Starscream elbowed Skyfire pointedly in his side, and Skyfire remembered to angle the rifle toward Starscream's head. "You need to back off right now," Skyfire warned, "or I'll blast him!"

Thundercracker looked even more confused. "But earlier, you said—"

"Don't just stand there like a moron!" Starscream yelled at him. "Go and sound the alarm!"

Thundercracker glanced between the two of them, as if he was trying to puzzle something out. He then gave a swift, military-precise nod, spun on his heel, and took off at a run. 

_Blast him_ Starscream ordered silently, through their bond.

_No,_ Skyfire answered firmly. _I promised earlier that I wouldn't hurt him, and—_

_Never mind what you promised! He's going to raise the alarm, just like I told him to!_

_I don't think so,_ Skyfire replied, as Thundercracker's retreating form disappeared around a corner. _I think he'll give us a minute._

_You'd better hope you're right._ Starscream shoved back against him, managing, in the process, to not-quite-accidentally kick one of his shins. _There's a lift behind you. GO!_

They stumbled awkwardly to the lift with Skyfire pretending to drag Starscream, and Starscream pretending to struggle. Skyfire guessed there must be cameras about, even if he couldn't actually see any. Presumably, Starscream had already disabled any cameras that were in his cell. Once they were inside the lift, Skyfire kept the rifle pressed to Starscream's temple while Starscream tapped in the security codes. 

_This'll take us up to the main staging deck,_ Starscream told him through the bond. A small data-packet came along with his words, and when Skyfire opened it, he found it was a schematic of the area that Starscream was telling him about. It was fuzzy around the edges, its resolution degraded by the weakness of the bond, but it was still readable. 

_There'll be at least two guards,_ Starscream went on. _You will need to actually_ shoot _them. Do you understand?_

Skyfire glanced at the rifle unhappily. _But—I don't have to hurt them. Right?_

Starscream made a grab for the rifle and tugged on it ferociously. For a moment, Skyfire thought he was making a serious attempt to get it away from him, but then he realized that he was surreptitiously changing the settings. _That's back to the null-ray setting,_ he said. _It'll just paralyze them._

Skyfire had seen the null-ray's effects on a handful of occasions and didn't think that paralysis sounded very pleasant either, but it was certainly better than having to do real damage. 

_Oh,_ Starscream added, _and you're going to need this._ He wrenched his body down violently, bending both of them almost double. He fumbled with his cockpit canopy for a moment while continuing with his mock struggle, and then slipped something between Skyfire's fingers. It was a data-chip. 

_What is this?_

_The antidote for Red Alert._ Starscream's mind-voice held more than just a hint of smugness as he explained. _It'll erase the tracking virus I implanted in him, and should help you buy your way back into the good graces of Optimus Prime._

_Thank you,_ Skyfire said, tucking it away as stealthily as he could. 

He was grateful for Red Alert's sake and for the future safety of the Autobots and their human allies, but he knew Starscream was mistaken if he thought that Skyfire could "buy" his way back into anything. Even if he'd wanted to. Perhaps that was one of the crucial differences between Autobots and Decepticons. Trust mattered to the Autobots in a way that was obviously foreign to Starscream's way of thinking. That realization saddened Skyfire. How long had it been since Starscream was able to trust anyone? Did he even remember what trust felt like?

The lift halted. The doors snapped open, and a pair of Seekers—Ramjet and Thrust—whirled toward them with identical looks of astonishment. Ramjet took aim, but Skyfire shot him before he could fire. A nimbus of pinkish energy bloomed around his frame and he collapsed to the deck in a twitching, groaning heap. Sparks of stray energy spat from his mouth and the gaps in his plating, and Skyfire stood frozen, horrified by what he'd just done. 

_Sky!_ Starscream elbowed him—none too gently—but it was already too late. Thrust had pounced on the nearest control console. 

"Intruder alert!" he yelled. "The Autobot prisoner's escaping! All personnel to the main staging deck!"

_Fire!_ Starscream kicked Skyfire's leg again, and Skyfire—knowing that he was right, even if he hated everything about this—squeezed the trigger. His blast caught Thrust full in the midsection as he whirled back to shoot at them, and Thrust went down with a groan. Sirens were shrieking now, and red lights flashing across all the consoles. 

"Slag!" Starscream hissed, aloud. "We have to get to the docking tower! It's on the map I gave you."

"Got it," Skyfire said. Then added, through the bond, _Hang on._ He shifted his free arm to Starscream's midsection and engaged his thrusters, lifting both of them. A quick volley of blasts took out the locks on the heavy set of doors at the end of the corridor, and Skyfire was careful to re-adjust the rifle back to its null-ray setting as they shot through.

The docking tower, like most other structures inside the Decepticon base, had a distinctly sinister look. It resembled a rifle barrel sunk into a shaft that went deep into the ocean bedrock, and supported a heavily armored lift compartment for passengers. The compartment had several doorways with ramps connecting to a system of gantries that spanned the dizzying drop, and could be accessed through several sets of doors just like the ones they'd just come through. 

One of these sets of doors flew open, and Thundercracker charged through. He was running straight at them with his rifles raised, Skywarp directly at his heels.

"Freeze!" he bellowed.

Starscream sent Skyfire a warning jab through their bond. _You better shoot them_ now, _or—_

Thundercracker tripped. One of his guns misfired, and—by some apparently miraculous stroke of luck—took out a control panel on the side of the docking tower's lift compartment. Later, Skyfire would almost swear that Thundercracker flashed him a quick half-grin just before he hit the floor. 

Skywarp tripped over his prone body and pitched forward, landing on his partner's sprawled form with a startled "Oof!"

The docking tower's ramps disengaged from their respective gantries and began to fold into the body of the lift compartment like so many sets of steel jaws hinging shut. Skyfire dove for the nearest one, shot through with nanokliks to spare, and landed in a heap on the lift compartment's floor, Starscream with him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter, in which Scavenger attempts a daring rescue, Red Alert delivers an invitation, and Skyfire breaks free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here it is, the final chapter of _Wing._ Thanks so much to [Skywinder](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Skywinder/) and [Novaspark](http://archiveofourown.org/users/novaspark) for providing last-minute beta assistance.

_We made it._

That was Skyfire's first thought as he crouched on the floor of the lift compartment with Starscream beneath him, his free arm still looped under Starscream's chest.

"Are you okay?" he asked—and then flinched as a laser blast slashed across his upper back and scored his shuttle-mode's nosecone assembly. Not all of the doors had closed. One was still half open, held in place by a hook. Skyfire shot at it, but the null-ray's discharge merely danced over the surface of the hook, then dissipated.

_Won't help,_ Starscream's voice spoke in his mind. _There's no electrical circuitry inside his hook assembly._

Skyfire edged to the door, pulling Starscream with him, and peered out. The owner of the hook was, of course, Hook himself. The Constructicon engineer was in his crane form, and two of his fellow Constructicons, Scrapper and Long Haul, were bracing their weight against him as he spun his wheels on the gantry, attempting to drag the door the rest of the way open. The other three Constructicons—Bonecrusher, Mixmaster and Scavenger—were cautiously advancing toward them along the gantry, weapons raised.

_Hang on,_ Starscream warned—and then wrenched so fiercely against Skyfire's grip that he very nearly did break free. "Bonecrusher! Mixmaster! Scavenger!" he shouted as he continued to kick and buck wildly, preventing the other Decepticons from getting a clear shot. "Thank Primus you're here! You simply _must_ save me!"

Skyfire, taking this as his cue, delivered a sharp kick to the hook and knocked it free. The heavy cable whipped back with the sudden release of tension and caught Bonecrusher around the legs, toppling him. He crashed down onto the gantry, arms flailing as he scrabbled for purchase on the smooth metal pavement. One of his elbows struck Mixmaster in the leg, causing him to lose his balance. Scrapper made a lunge for him, catching his arm just as he tumbled from the edge of the gantry. Long Haul, in turn, caught Scrapper around the waist and attempted to drag both of his teammates to safety.

The door shuddered, let out a groan, and then, slowly, began to close. Skyfire was about to release a long-held vent of relief when Scavenger, who'd been glancing between his struggling teammates with an air of confusion, suddenly sprang forward. "Hang on, Starscream!" he yelled, "I'll save you!"

"Ah, my _hero,"_ Starscream muttered, as Scavenger took an awkward leap toward them, transforming into his power-shovel mode in midair. For a moment, it looked as if he wasn't going to make it. The door was more than three quarters of the way closed, but then suddenly the thin edge of a shovel jammed its way into the gap and wrenched the door back open with a hideous squeal. Scavenger shifted back in his mech form, forced his arms and shoulders through the gap, and hauled himself inside.

As he slid to the floor and landed in a graceless heap, Skyfire was suddenly, nonsensically, reminded of Inferno doing precisely the same thing—when? Had it _really_ been less than a day? How much had changed since then. A change evidenced by Skyfire's lack of hesitation in firing the null-ray, which felled Starscream's hapless would-be rescuer even as he struggled to rise.

The door made a grinding noise, and for one dreadful moment, Skyfire was sure that it wasn't going to close. But then it did, and Starscream threw himself at the lift's control panel, wildly punching in codes while Skyfire—mindful that Scavenger, though paralyzed, might still be paying attention—kept the rifle trained on his head. The tower lurched, began to rise… and water started flowing in.

It was just a trickle at first, seeping in around the edges of the damaged door. There was an ominous creak as metal gave way to the Pacific Ocean's crushing weight. Miniature geysers erupted around the edges of the door, which began folding inward like a thin sheet of foil.

"It's not sealing!" Starscream grabbed the rifle from Skyfire's hands, made a few swift adjustments, and started blasting the edges of the door. Clouds of steam erupted as the metal began to glow, then bubble, and the edges of the door welded themselves to the surrounding wall. Skyfire guessed that Starscream must be using a setting similar to the one he'd used earlier to cauterize the wound on his leg. The impromptu weld was slowing the influx of water, but it wasn't going to be enough.

The steam was so dense that Skyfire, blinded by the thick vapor, had to grope across the floor in order to find Scavenger. The Constructicon gave a soft moan when Skyfire's hand closed on his arm. "Sorry I missed the early muster," he mumbled. "I found a shiny rock, do you think it's energon?"

Skyfire felt a wave of regret for having shot him. Not that he'd had much of a choice, but he hated this; hated all of it. He lifted Scavenger's head from the water to keep the salt brine from getting into his delicate cranial circuitry, and dragged him over to lean against the wall.

"What the Pits are you doing?" Starscream shouted. "Get the plating from the control console—we need metal over here!"

That seemed like a good idea. It took virtually no effort for Skyfire to rip the exterior panels from the control console. He held the pieces against the worst of the gaps in the door while Starscream welded them in place. He could only guess what Scavenger might be thinking, assuming that he could even see them through the intervening clouds of vapor, but he hoped the fact that Starscream was acting to save himself as much as anyone else would serve as a sufficient cover for his actions.

His thoughts were interrupted when Starscream arched back against him, caught hold of his chin-guard, and pulled his head down into a sweet, fierce kiss. Now Skyfire could only _hope_ that Scavenger couldn't see them—and that there weren't any cameras around—because there was simply no way that he could keep himself from kissing back with everything he had, pouring all the love and passion he felt for Starscream into this one, perhaps final, meeting of their lips.

The tower slowed and glided to a stop, and there was a hiss of breaking seals as the doors opened. Starscream shoved the rifle into Skyfire's hands, then leaped away from him as if stung, raising his own hands in a gesture of self protection.

"No, please, don't shoot!" he cried, backing away from Skyfire along one of the doors, which had folded out horizontally, like a ramp.

The sky above them was dark and clear, and angling toward them out of that pristine night was a small, tightly clustered formation of flying figures. Megatron was in the lead, his silver-gray armor glinting dully in the moonlight. Soundwave was a darker shape, flying to his right, and Laserbeak, the small, birdlike Decepticon, was flying just below them, zig-zagging anxiously back and forth as if he already knew that something was wrong.

"Now!" Starscream hissed, through clenched dentae. "Shoot now!"

Skyfire shifted his grip on the weapon as his gaze met Starscream's. He'd known that he was going to hate this part, but he had to do it. For Starscream's own sake, if nothing else. His spark clenched painfully in his chest as he took aim, his finger curling around the trigger mechanism.

Starscream lunged at him and seized his wrist as if he was trying to get the rifle away from him. "If you don't shoot me _right now_ , I'll—"

"Find me," Skyfire whispered.

Starscream froze. Their gazes locked as Starscream seemed to struggle to formulate an answer. He finally tilted his chin downward in just a hint of a nod—and Skyfire pulled the trigger.

Starscream stumbled back with a loud, anguished cry, his arms churning the air as he fought for balance. His knees buckled, and then he crashed down onto the ramp—landing a good distance from its edge, Skyfire couldn't help but notice—and lay in a shuddering heap. Skyfire dropped the rifle. Everything in him wanted to rush to Starscream's side and make sure that he was all right.

"For frag's sake, GO!" Starscream growled.

A laser blast from behind skimmed Skyfire's shoulder. He spun around and saw that Scavenger had managed to pull himself half upright against the door frame and was attempting to shoot at him. Laserbeak, too, had begun strafing the ramp, his shots peppering dangerously close to where Starscream lay—and then, as if all that weren't enough, a fusion blast zipped past Skyfire's head and ripped into the door frame behind him, almost taking out Scavenger in the process.

Skyfire leaped from the ramp and transformed, allowing gravity to carry him in a steep dive toward the waves. One of his wings skimmed the water, salt biting the wound that Starscream had patched for him earlier. He zig-zagged, dodging the thick pillars of energy stabbing down at him from Megatron's cannon, then pulled up, turning wing over wing as he corkscrewed skyward and punched straight through the middle of the little group of Decepticons. One of his wings bumped Megatron, knocking him sideways.

Skyfire transformed. He hovered for a moment, balancing effortlessly on his thrusters, and gave Megatron a mocking salute. The Decepticon leader shouted something unintelligible as he struggled to re-orient himself to fire his cannon upward. Skyfire shifted back into his shuttle mode, dodging fusion blasts as he rocketed into the sky.

None of his three would-be pursuers were strong enough fliers to have a hope of catching up to him. They, and the docking tower, dwindled to specks below as he rose through the layers of atmosphere and headed east. What didn't dwindle was the soft, pulsating glow in his spark, or the gentle pull he felt through the invisible thread that linked him back to Starscream.

"I love you."

He said it out loud. To the night, to the waves, and the majestic sweep of stars. To the corona of light that edged the eastern horizon, presaging dawn. For now, it was enough.

* * *

Three days later, he was looking at the sky again. It was a cloudless morning, and condors were circling in the blue heights above the Autobot base. Skyfire was on the western slope of the extinct volcano, sitting with his arms braced across his drawn-up knees. The warmth of the sun felt good against his back, and though the fullness of the day's heat had yet to take hold, he was soaking up what he could while he still had the chance.

The fact that he'd chosen to sit facing in the general direction of the Decepticon base might have been a coincidence. Then again, it might not have been. He'd caught a brief glimpse the previous night, just at sunset. A ghostly, delta-winged form soaring at the edges of space, throwing back the sun's last rays like the fiery tail of a comet. When Skyfire saw him, he'd known, somehow, that it was the sign he'd been waiting for. He could go.

There had been surprisingly few goodbyes that he'd needed to say. He'd said goodbye to Wheeljack, of course, as well as Ratchet and Ironhide. He had paused, more than once, at the door to the quarters shared by Inferno and Red Alert, but in the end had refrained from knocking. He felt that he perhaps owed them some sort of apology. Then again, it wasn't he who had implanted Red Alert with a virus or taken advantage of his disoriented condition, and it wasn't his place to apologize for Starscream's actions.

Nor could he see what possible good would come of it. The only result he could foresee was that it could potentially reveal the true nature of his relationship with Starscream, and that was something he wouldn't do. Starscream needed someone he could trust, and the trust that he'd placed in Skyfire—a trust that Skyfire hadn't earned, and apparently didn't need to—was more important, Skyfire had decided, than even the trust of his fellow Autobots. It was sacred, and it was best, perhaps, that he simply move on and leave Inferno and Red Alert to make whatever peace they could.

A lizard scurried onto a rock near his elbow. Skyfire's memory banks swiftly cataloged it as: _western collared lizard, male,_ but with the rest of his awareness, he simply admired the creature's swift, graceful movements, and the way that his vivid, green-and-turquoise scales seemed to glow in the sunlight. The lizard tipped his head to the side and studied Skyfire with one brilliant, dark eye. Finally, seeming to have decided that the gigantic metal creature wasn't a predator, he settled in to bask on the warm rock.

Skyfire smiled.

"Skyfire?"

He glanced up and realized, to his surprise, that Red Alert had soundlessly climbed the rocky trail that led to his perch.

"Hello," Skyfire said, thinking that the Autobot security chief looked much better than he had three days earlier. His stance appeared firm and his blue was gaze clear, if uncertain. It was a relief to see. On arriving at the base, Skyfire had given the chip with the antidote directly to Optimus Prime, who had, in turn, passed it on to Ratchet. Apparently, it had done just what Starscream had said it would, relieving Red Alert of the tracking virus he'd been infected with—though not, evidently, his paranoia.

Red Alert studied Skyfire and the lizard with equal suspicion before he stated, finally, "I heard that you're leaving."

"I am," Skyfire confirmed.

Red Alert nodded as if this had confirmed something, then asked, "Where do you think you'll go?"

"I'm not sure yet," Skyfire admitted. Through satellite imagery, he had managed to locate an abandoned airfield in northern Alaska. It was remote enough that the comings and goings of even a mech his size could remain unnoticed, at least for a while, and the aging hangars looked tall enough for him to stand upright. It seemed, if nothing else, a reasonable place to start.

"Hm," was all Red Alert said in response. He was staring at something just beyond Skyfire's shoulder, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. Belatedly, it occurred to Skyfire that Red Alert hadn't asked _why_ he was leaving.

"Are you well?" Skyfire asked, finally.

"I'm all right." Red Alert fidgeted. He seemed on the brink of turning away, but then vented a low sigh, settled his shoulders and added, "I'm sorry I called you a traitor. And that I shot you."

This was the last thing Skyfire had expected from him, and it actually took him a moment to remember what Red Alert was talking about. "It's fine," he said at last. "It's nothing. You weren't yourself at the time."

Red Alert's gaze hardened. "Everyone keeps saying that! It was _me_ , Skyfire. _I_ shot you, and _I'm_ sorry."

"Then I forgive you," Skyfire said, startled by his ferocity.

Red Alert stared at him for a long moment. "Thank you," he said shortly. He started away again, then paused and thrust his hand toward Skyfire in what Skyfire thought at first was an invitation to shake hands. Then he noticed the tiny, human-sized envelope caught between Red Alert's middle and index fingers. "This came by courier, three days ago."

"Three _days?"_

"I had it x-rayed," Red Alert explained. "I also ran tests for explosives and radiation, which came back negative. I was going to run other tests, but I guess you might as well have it since you're leaving anyway."

"Thank you," Skyfire said bemusedly, taking it from him. The envelope was green and carried an embossed letterhead that said, simply, _The Solomon Foundation._ Skyfire's name was written across the front in an elegant, flowing script, as if from a fountain pen, and on the back was a gold wax seal in the shape of an owl.

Red Alert started away again, then paused again. "He's changed," he stated. His tone was steady, but his cheekplates had tinged faintly pink and a stray burst of electrical charge danced between the tips of his horns. Skyfire had little doubt as to who he was talking about. "Whatever he is to you, he's not who you remember," Red Alert went on. "He isn't who _I_ remember. Not that I ever knew him that well. You should be very careful."

Skyfire's mouth dropped open as his mind struggled to sort through the implications of what Red Alert had just said. "What…?" 

Red Alert nodded as if Skyfire's reaction had confirmed something, and added, quietly, "Don't worry, I'm not going to say anything. Goodbye, Skyfire. Good luck."

"Thank you," Skyfire said again, at a loss for what else to say. Red Alert simply turned and strode down the trail, moving with the agility of a mountain goat. Skyfire watched until he disappeared around a bend in the trail, still trying to comprehend what had just happened. Red Alert had guessed, somehow. Skyfire couldn't imagine how anything that he or Starscream had done could have tipped him off, especially with Red Alert having been in such an apparently confused state during their escape from the base, yet he was also quite confident that Red Alert had meant what he'd said about not telling anyone. There was certainly more to the Autobot security chief than met the eye, as humans seemed fond of saying.

Skyfire broke the seal on the envelope with some apprehension, half expecting it to bite him. There was nothing inside but a single sheet of paper. He unfolded it, and found that it was a note written in that same, fountain pen script:

_Dear Skyfire,_ _It was delightful to meet you at last, in spite of the unfortunate circumstances, and I hope that you will consider visiting us at the Solomon Foundation for Interplanetary Travel and Exploration (SITE). You are welcome to drop in at any time, and I look forward to many fascinating scientific discussions._ _Yours truly,_ _Bartholomew P. Evans—and Solomon himself._

Below that, inscribed along the bottom of the note in careful block numbers, was a set of coordinates.

Skyfire read through the note a second time, and then a third. "Meet me _at last_?" he echoed. It seemed an odd phrasing, considering that his meeting with the astrobiologist had been accidental. Hadn't it? And who was Solomon? He frowned, and read the note one more time before he carefully folded it and stowed it in one of his storage compartments.

He then settled back for a moment, his gaze coming to rest once more on _western collared lizard, male,_ who was clearly enjoying the warmth of the sun. Maybe labels didn't matter, he thought. Whether he called himself an Autobot or a Decepticon, he simply was who he was, and so was Starscream. Whatever happened next was going to come from that place; not from the insignia he wore on his chest, but from the spark that lived beneath it.

He rose, slowly and carefully so as not to disturb the reptile, and stretched, flexing his wings. The shadow of a condor slipped up the mountainside, passing over the lizard's rock, and the tiny creature gave a squeak of alarm and scurried into a crack. Skyfire's gaze swept up, following the slope of the mountain to where the condor hovered, riding the winds. He leaped skyward.

His thrusters carried him high above the mountain where he hovered for a moment, taking one last look at the Autobot base that had been his home for the past several months. He transformed, punched his engines, and shot toward the coordinates that Dr. Evans—Bart—had sent. The landscape blurred beneath him, the desert colors flowing into each other as he gained speed.

He was in the mood, he had decided, for a scientific discussion or two. Alaska could wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to all the wonderful people who have beta'd this story and provided feedback on it at various stages. The story has grown tremendously as a result of everyone's input, and I've grown as a writer, too. Thanks also to everyone who has read this far, and everyone who has left kudos or comments! It's been wonderful interacting with readers through the comments section and getting to know some of you. Lastly, if you enjoyed _Under His Wing,_ then fear not; this is the end of the story, but not of the series. Watch this space for the sequel, _The Beckoning Silence._


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